Cradling a dead baby in her arms, a girl weeps as she walks alone down a dirt road in eastern Uganda.

About a year earlier, she learned she was pregnant. She turned to the baby’s father and his family for help and support, but they denied responsibility. Then, her own family spurned her. Though still a child herself, she had no choice but to leave her village and fend for herself. Six months later, she returned with the child, who had been born but subsequently died. She needed to find a place to bury him. But again the father, his family and her own family rejected her.

How do you put out a paper when riots have paralyzed the city?

By building calf muscles as strong as Diego Forlan’s!

We walked. And walked. On day 2 of the riots, Fernando Mbanze, the editor of Savana sister’s publication, Media Fax started walking at 6:30 am and reached the newsroom 22 kms later, at 10:30. Several times the Savana car tried to reach him but either protesters or police, barricades of burning tyres or random shooting, prevented the car from going through. So Mbanze walked on.

Fearing their cars might be stoned, damaged or burnt, car owners did not venture out.

Chapananga is a remote chiefdom on Malawi’s southern border with Mozambique. It is four and a half hours of meandering mountainous road and hard driving from Blantyre, the commercial capital of the country, where Nation Publications Limited, my host organization, is headquartered.

In a month and a half’s time when the rains start, the area will be inaccessible by road transport, including their sturdiest and most reliable of 4x4’s.

I’m thinking a lot about the definition of the word “impact” these days. When I reflect on my past two years in Kenya, the meaning might seem clear at first.

“Just what the heck is different about Kenyan media since my plane touched down in late June 2008?" Wow, that question almost felt egomaniacal as I typed it! How can one person expect to exert enough influence to quantify a tangible impact on an entire country’s media? In one year, or two….or 10, for that matter?

If this looks like a tightly cropped shot, it really isn't. The actual room where this scene took place was only about a 10 by 8 foot space tucked away in a back office at Webuye Hospital, Bungoma District, about two hours from Kisumu, Kenya.

This setting mirrors hundreds of hospitals and clinics in Western Kenya, where every day, thousands of children develop severe symptoms of diarrheal disease. It happens because they live in villages and towns where there’s scarce access to clean water.

Editors Note: Zarina Geloo travels to leper colony in Zambia.

Editor’s Note: Mercedes Sayagues is a Knight International Health Fellow working to improve coverage of health issues in Mozambique. She found herself in the midst of violent riots in Maputo this week, and her reporter’s instincts took over.I was 50 meters away when the bullet hit Helio Rute, slicing a chunk of his skull. Helio was 12 years old and heading home when he was caught between rioters and police on Acordos de Lusaka avenue in Maputo. He died on the spot, one of more than half a dozen killed today.

Last year, the aluminum production company Mozal quietly requested authorization to operate with direct emissions (or bypass the filtering system) while repairing its Fume Treatment Centers (FTC) for six months, at a cost of $10-million. "Sub-optimal engineering in the centers," was the bland term used by Mozal assets president Mike Fraser to explain the need for repairs. Translation: shoddy quality.

The smelter, one of the largest foreign investments ever in Mozambique, is visible from the highway linking Maputo to South Africa.