Over the course of our lifetimes, there are few activities on which we will spend more time than reading. Now imagine a world where there are few, if any, written words… and welcome to Ngongongare Village in the Arusha District of northern Tanzania. Today, though, a new initiative called the Maktaba Project (“library” in Swahili) is working on building a network of libraries in six rural communities over the next 10 years.

Living in a new culture can often open your eyes to just how many different ways there are to communicate. In fact, new languages and cultures, in addition to teaching you new means of communication, may even open your mind to ideas that you previously never knew existed. This deep connection between language and culture is what we explore in this article.

Living what some outsiders would consider a feral existence is normal to the children of Yakel, a ‘Kastom’ village on the island of Tanna in the Vanuatu archipelago. The settlement is referred to locally as a Nambas village – the Nambas being the sole item of apparel worn by men, hiding their private parts. This means that the village rejects everything introduced by the Western world. The children will never go to school. Their clothing, food and entertainment will be provided solely by the forest in which they live.

If there’s one sport that sums up Argentina, it’s football (soccer). In a country so devoted to its one national sport, one of the largest, most passionate and most spectacular matches is the Superclásico, a local derby between the River Plate and Boca Juniors teams of Buenos Aires. Several years ago the UK’s ‘Observer’ rated it at the top of their ’50 Sporting Things You Must Do Before You Die’ for the experience and the atmosphere created by the fans.