Tigist Muleta has the kind of story I want all my journalism trainees exposed to. She could have been another statistic – a wife at 14 who finds that repeated pregnancies threaten the comfortable life she envisioned. Instead, a new awareness of health and reproductive choices helped turn her life around.

Although Tigist was quickly the mother of three, her relatives in Ethiopia’s remote district of Girar-Jarsso still advised her and her husband to have more children – considered wealth there. Then a community health worker taught the young couple about family planning methods.

The last of the jacaranda’s hardiest blossoms are being blasted from the trees by fierce wind and rain. Spring has turned to stormy summer in South Africa, and almost everyone in Johannesburg is about to decamp for the beach or the village for the holidays.

The media have been obsessed with the antics of the leaders of the ANC Youth League, the young lords of the ruling party who’re led by Julius Malema, now facing a five-year suspension from the ANC for defying party elders, disrupting meetings, and criticizing President Zuma.