They look lovely, the heaps of sand in ochre, sienna, orange and yellow hues, glistening under the sun or the dappled shade in the markets and street corners of Maputo. Five meticais (US$0,10) will buy you a funil, a cone made of newsprint filled with silky sand, the colour – and taste - of your choice.

Yes, taste. For this sand is sold to be eaten. Eating soil or sand (geofagia) was a traditional practice among many groups, from Native Americans to Amazonian tribes.

On the first day, only the girls in the afternoon shift at one classroom fainted. First one, then four, 20 by the end of the week. In the second week, the fainting spells spread to all the classes of the Quisse Mavota High School in the periphery of Maputo. Among its 4,475 pupils, only the older girls fainted. By the end of the second week, 120 girls were having fainting spells and these were spreading into the satellite school. Panic followed: parents, teachers and students alike were scared.

The girls explained that the ancestor spirits were upset.

When it comes to crazy things, nothing beats what Pilirani Lazaro, a 22-year-old peasant farmer from Kalaza Village in central Malawi, did recently.

It may sound stranger than fiction, but on November 21, he took a knife, went into the bush, cut off his testicles and immediately put them up for sale.

Six journalists from six different backgrounds come together to publish their first investigative report on international aid, making the front page of Haiti's only daily newspaper.

2010 hasn’t been kind to Haiti. Not that the past few decades – or even two centuries – have been generous, but an earthquake, hurricane and the introduction of cholera have made these past eleven months particularly challenging. It’s also why there has been so much hype about Sunday’s much-anticipated presidential and parliamentary elections.