My Diary – Leonardo Cardillo

Key Takeaways

Black Friday built around safety
A Black Friday promotion in 2025 from Bowork, a safety specialist in the Netherlands (Europe), used discounts to draw attention to work shoes, winter workwear and emergency kits rather than to fast, disposable fashion.

Simple code, clear extra discount
The message centred on “extra kassakorting” at the checkout, with an extra 10% off through the code BF10 and higher savings on outlet items, running through Monday 1 December 2025, a date that has now passed.

Free extras with real daily value
Warm hats, work socks and leather care were added as free gifts to selected safety shoes, winter jackets and work boots from brands such as Solid Gear, Workman, Totectors, Sixton, Grisport and Redbrick.

Emergency kits as part of everyday gear
Small, medium and large emergency kits sat beside footwear and clothing in the promotion, linking personal protective equipment with broader readiness for unexpected situations at work, on the road or at home.

Story & Details

A Black Friday offer rooted in work life

In late November 2025, Black Friday banners appeared again across shops in the Netherlands (Europe). One of them, from Bowork, looked a little different. Instead of pushing televisions or fashion, it opened with a short Dutch line that catches the eye: “Black Friday extra kassakorting, 10% met code BF10”. The phrase plays with a very practical idea. “Kassakorting” means discount at the checkout. The message promises a strong price cut right where it matters: on the final total.

The promotion did not stop at the code. Bowork announced that the extra discount would run “up to and including Monday 1 December 2025”, stretching the Black Friday feeling across the long weekend. On top of the 10% code, outlet pieces received even deeper reductions. For people who depend on their work shoes and jackets every day, this created a clear signal: this is a good moment to replace worn gear without breaking the budget.

Free warmth and comfort with safety shoes

The heart of the offer was not only the price. It was also the way small free items were tied to specific products that matter at work. Safety shoes from Solid Gear came with a free beanie, a small but welcome extra when mornings on site are cold and long. Winter softshell jackets from Workman arrived with a warm hat, a quiet nod to outdoor shifts and drafty warehouses.

The Totectors Williams safety shoes stood out as well. Three mid-cut, waterproof models in black, stone and wheat colourways were each shown at a price of €138.99. To each pair, Bowork added a free pack of five work socks. For anyone who spends hours standing or walking on hard floors, this combination matters. Good socks reduce friction, improve comfort and help workers actually use the safety footwear that keeps them compliant and protected.

Work boots from brands such as Sixton, Grisport and Redbrick received a different kind of bonus: a free tin of leather grease. This leaned into a simple idea that safety experts repeat often. Protective footwear works best when it is cared for. Regular cleaning and conditioning helps keep leather supple, keeps water resistance in shape and extends the life of the boots. A free care product quietly invites buyers to see their footwear as equipment, not as disposable fashion.

Emergency kits beside boots and jackets

Alongside jackets, shoes and boots, Bowork placed three emergency kits in the spotlight. These “noodpakketten” were offered in Small, Medium and Large versions. The Small kit was priced at €61.97, the Medium at €99.16 and the Large at €148.75, all presented with the familiar Dutch warning “OP = OP”, which tells shoppers that once stock is gone, the offer ends.

A closer look at Bowork’s product pages shows how these kits are constructed. The Small kit is described as compact and practical, with six carefully chosen items that cover basic needs in a crisis, such as simple first aid and basic comfort on the road or during short trips. The Large kit contains oral rehydration salts, a high-capacity water filter with spare elements, hygiene gel, a detailed first-aid pack and multiple emergency blankets, designed for people who want more complete preparation for travel, outdoor work or home emergencies. The kits sit within Bowork’s broad personal protective equipment section and are framed as part of staying ready, not as an afterthought. [1][2][11]

This mix of safety footwear and emergency kits matches a wider trend. Guidance from European occupational safety bodies stresses that protective equipment is not only about helmets and gloves. Protective footwear and simple emergency provisions play a key role in preventing injuries and reducing the impact of slips, trips, falls and other incidents, especially in busy workplaces. [3][4][6]

A short Dutch language note

The language of the promotion also tells a small story. Phrases such as “extra kassakorting” and “OP = OP” are typical in Dutch retail. “Extra kassakorting” stresses that the real benefit appears when the shopper is ready to pay. “OP = OP” uses repetition to say “when it is gone, it is gone”, urging people not to wait too long. Seen together, these phrases help explain why the campaign feels both urgent and down to earth: it talks like a shop worker who understands that safety shoes, warm jackets and emergency kits are serious purchases, but still knows that a good deal can make the decision easier.

Safety, service and a specialist identity

Beyond this single Black Friday moment, Bowork’s own descriptions present the company as a specialist in personal protective equipment. The shop and online store focus on work shoes, safety boots, clogs, workwear and a wide range of protective items for hearing, breathing, eyes, face and head. It positions itself as a central place where companies and self-employed workers can kit out an entire team with footwear, clothing and protection under one roof. [1][5][11]

The business has offered this mix since 1990 and now operates both a large physical store and a webshop. Customers can browse hundreds of workwear items from brands such as Workman, Snickers and Tricorp, and can ask for printing and embroidery when uniforms need a logo or company name. In work shoes, the range spans everyday safety sneakers to heavy-duty boots, for both men and women, reflecting changes in style, fit and new safety standards across Europe. [5][7][8][15]

In this context, the November 2025 Black Friday campaign reads less like a random promotion and more like a seasonal snapshot of a bigger story: a Dutch retailer using a busy shopping moment to highlight the importance of good footwear, warm clothing and practical emergency kits in daily working life.

To place these choices within a wider safety discussion, one helpful video comes from European workplace safety experts. It looks at how public institutions bring occupational safety and health into everyday thinking, and how campaigns, guidance and examples encourage employers to take protective footwear and other protective equipment more seriously. [9]

Conclusions

Safety first, discount second

The Black Friday campaign built by Bowork in 2025 shows how a promotion can stay close to real working life. The headline promise is a strong discount code and cheaper outlet items, yet underneath sits a clear safety story: better footwear, warmer clothing and simple emergency kits that can all make a long shift more secure and less stressful.

Everyday items with long-term impact

Free hats, socks and leather grease may sound modest, but they push buyers toward using their gear well. A warm hat increases comfort outdoors, good socks make safety shoes easier to wear all day, and leather care helps boots stay protective for longer. Together with the structure and content of the emergency kits, these details highlight that real protection is built step by step, not in a single grand purchase.

A small language lesson with a wider echo

The short Dutch phrases used in the promotion show how safety and savings can be communicated in simple, human terms. “Extra kassakorting” and “OP = OP” may be retail shorthand, but they also frame protective equipment as normal, everyday shopping rather than something distant or technical. That tone matters when the goal is to keep more workers standing safely on the job, from the warehouse floor to the roadside.

Selected References

[1] Bowork – Personal protective equipment overview, including ear, respiratory, head and face protection, alongside footwear and workwear: https://www.bowork.nl/persoonlijke-beschermingsmiddelen/

[2] Bowork – Emergency kits overview, showing Small, Medium and Large “noodpakketten” with key contents, prices and stock information: https://www.bowork.nl/persoonlijke-beschermingsmiddelen/noodpakketten/

[3] European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) – Protective footwear requirements, selection and ergonomics, explaining how to choose safety shoes that balance protection and comfort: https://oshwiki.osha.europa.eu/en/themes/protective-footwear-requirements-selection-and-ergonomics

[4] Health and Safety Executive, United Kingdom (Europe) – Guidance on specifying slip-resistant footwear and using objective testing to reduce slips and falls: https://www.hse.gov.uk/slips/footprocure.htm

[5] Bowork – Main company site, outlining its role as a shop, webshop and wholesaler of work shoes, workwear and personal protective equipment: https://www.bowork.nl/

[6] European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) – General overview of personal protective equipment and related guidance: https://oshwiki.osha.europa.eu/en/themes/ppe

[7] Bowork – Workwear section, presenting brands such as Workman, Snickers and Tricorp and options for printing and embroidery of corporate clothing: https://www.bowork.nl/werkkleding/

[8] Bowork – Store information page, describing the large physical shop for work shoes and workwear in Bunschoten in the Netherlands (Europe): https://www.bowork.nl/werkschoenen-werkkledingwinkel

[9] EU-OSHA and partners – Video on bringing workplace health and safety to the forefront of public discussion, highlighting occupational safety campaigns and their impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVmvdO2_C24

[10] Health and Safety Authority, Ireland (Europe) – Advice on footwear to prevent slips and support slip risk assessment and prevention: https://www.hsa.ie/eng/topics/slips_trips_falls/shoes%2C_footwear/

[11] Bowork – Detailed product page for the Large emergency kit, setting out its contents and intended uses for travel, outdoor work and home preparedness: https://www.bowork.nl/noodpakket-large/

[12] Honeywell – Technical guide to EN ISO 20345:2022 safety footwear standard and its updates, including slip resistance and ergonomic expectations: https://automation.honeywell.com/content/dam/honeywell-edam/sps/his/en-gb/campaigns/path-factory/footwear/ia-ppe-pf-technical-guide-footwear.pdf

Appendix

Black Friday
A shopping event that takes place on the Friday after the fourth Thursday of November, often extended over a long weekend, when many shops offer strong discounts to attract customers.

Emergency kit
A compact collection of items such as first-aid materials, water treatment, hygiene products and emergency blankets, kept ready for use in unexpected situations at work, on the road or at home.

Outlet
A section where products are sold at reduced prices because they are from older seasons, overstock or end-of-line ranges, often used by retailers to offer extra value on still-useful goods.

Personal protective equipment
Clothing and gear such as helmets, gloves, safety footwear, eye protection and hearing protection, worn to reduce the risk of injury when people face hazards in their work.

Safety footwear
Shoes or boots designed for work, built to standards that may include toe protection, slip-resistant soles, puncture-resistant midsoles and other features to protect the feet in hazardous environments.

Work socks
Durable socks designed for use with work shoes or boots, often thicker or reinforced in key areas to reduce friction, improve comfort and help keep feet dry during long shifts.

Workwear
Clothing designed for use on the job, including jackets, trousers, overalls and high-visibility items, made to withstand wear and tear and sometimes to provide added protection or visibility.

A gentle journey through one ordinary day in late 2025

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Key Takeaways

What this piece is about
This article explores small daily victories in countries that rarely sit at the centre of global news, such as Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa), Malawi (Africa), Honduras (North America), Nepal (Asia), Moldova (Europe), Georgia (Europe), Cambodia (Asia), Rwanda (Africa), Uganda (Africa), Zambia (Africa), Laos (Asia), Togo (Africa), Benin (Africa), Madagascar (Africa), Haiti (North America) and Bolivia (South America).

Why this matters in 2025
In 2025, the United Nations Development Programme reports that global human development is growing at the slowest pace in thirty-five years and that gaps between richer and poorer countries are widening again. The World Bank now uses a higher global extreme poverty line of 3 dollars per person per day, which shows that hundreds of millions of people still struggle to cover basic needs.

What counts as a “victory” here
Victories in this article are simple acts: getting out of bed on a heavy morning, walking long distances to work or school, studying when tired, staying calm at home, saving a little money, or trying again after a “no”.

What the reader is invited to do
The reader is gently invited to notice one small victory from today and to treat it as something real and valuable, in any country and on any kind of day.

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Story & Details

A day that can be any day in late 2025

In late 2025, many headlines talk about wars, elections and new technologies. At the same time, a quieter story runs through daily life in Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa), Malawi (Africa), Honduras (North America), Nepal (Asia), Moldova (Europe), Georgia (Europe), Cambodia (Asia), Rwanda (Africa), Uganda (Africa), Zambia (Africa), Laos (Asia), Togo (Africa), Benin (Africa), Madagascar (Africa), Haiti (North America) and Bolivia (South America).

This quieter story is made of small actions that almost no one sees from outside, but that keep families and communities standing.

Morning in Niger and Chad: getting up anyway

In parts of Niger (Africa) and Chad (Africa), morning often begins before the sun climbs high. A room may still be cool from the night or already warm. Worries about food, school fees or work wait in the mind.

Someone opens their eyes and feels the weight of the day ahead. Staying under the blanket would be easy. Instead, feet touch the floor. A person walks to collect water, opens a small stall, heads to the market, or wakes a child and helps with clothes and books. There is no audience and no speech about motivation. That first step out of bed is a quiet victory.

Morning in Honduras and Haiti: stepping out with fear

In some neighbourhoods of Honduras (North America) and Haiti (North America), the first sounds of the day can bring tension. People hear about crime, political conflict or rising prices for food and fuel, and streets and buses do not always feel safe.

Even so, many people leave home. Someone climbs into a crowded bus and holds a child close. Someone sets up a street stand with fruit, snacks or repair tools. Someone walks to a job that pays little but still keeps the family going. Fear stays present, but it does not fully decide the day. That choice to go out is a victory.

Midday in Nepal and Bolivia: thin air, long roads

By midday in parts of Nepal (Asia) and Bolivia (South America), many people have already walked up and down steep hills. Towns and villages can sit high in the mountains, where thin air turns every climb into hard work. Markets, schools and clinics are often far apart, so one simple errand can mean hours of travel.

A parent may have carried water at dawn, then goods to sell, then a child who grew too tired to walk. The sun is now strong. Legs ache, backs hurt, and the day is only half done. The small victory is a quiet thought: “I am very tired, but I can keep going a little more.”

Midday in Moldova and Georgia: when numbers just about work

In Moldova (Europe) and Georgia (Europe), midday can mean a short pause with coffee or tea. During that break, someone adds wages, bills and prices in their head. There is rent or a mortgage. There is money needed for heating or electricity, for food, for bus tickets, for school supplies and for medicine.

Recent Human Development Reports describe how progress in health, education and income has slowed in many low-income countries, and how gaps in living standards between the top and bottom groups of countries are growing again. For a person at a kitchen table in Chișinău in Moldova (Europe) or Tbilisi in Georgia (Europe), the key fact is simpler: if the power bill can be paid, if rent is not late, if there is enough left for a notebook for a child, that is a victory.

Afternoon in Rwanda and Uganda: tired eyes, open books

In Rwanda (Africa) and Uganda (Africa), many young people use the afternoon for study. Classrooms are full. Small libraries stay busy. Cyber cafés and basic phones serve as windows to lessons and practice tests.

A student may have worked in a field in the morning or helped with younger siblings. Eyes are heavy, the chair is hard, and the room is noisy. It would be easy to close the book. Instead, one more page gets read. One more exercise is finished. One more short lesson plays on a phone screen. Research on “small wins” at work and in study shows that tiny steps forward can lift mood and motivation in a strong way. Each extra page in Kigali in Rwanda (Africa) or Gulu in Uganda (Africa) is a small step with real power, even if no one claps.

Afternoon in Cambodia and Laos: trying again

In Cambodia (Asia) and Laos (Asia), many afternoons are filled with second and third and fourth attempts. Someone who lost savings on a failed stall opens a new one. Someone who has sent many job applications writes another message. Someone signs up for a simple language course or online class, even while thinking, “School is for other people, not for me.”

There is risk in each new try: more time, more hope and maybe more disappointment. Yet each try is also a way to say, “Giving up is not the only path.” The result may not show this week or this year. The victory is in the decision to try again.

Evening in Zambia and Malawi: kindness in crowded houses

In Zambia (Africa) and Malawi (Africa), evenings often mean many people in a small home. Children ask for food and for help with homework. Older relatives need care. Adults return from long days in fields, markets or informal jobs, carrying worry about money and health.

In this mix, tempers can rise fast. A harsh word or a shout is always close. The harder choice is to listen to a child’s story from school, to share a small joke, or to stay calm when a plate breaks. When someone makes that harder choice, the air in the room changes. The house is not richer, but it feels safer. That change is a victory.

Evening in Togo and Benin: saying “not today”

In Togo (Africa) and Benin (Africa), many people live from day to day. At night, there may be a chance to buy small treats, join friends for drinks, or spend money just to forget the stress that has built up. These moments can bring joy, but they can also eat into rent or school fees.

Saying “Not today; this money stays for food, school or medicine” can feel like a loss in the moment. Friends may not understand. Still, this choice protects the days ahead. Even if no one else sees it, it is a financial victory.

Late night in Madagascar, Niger, Haiti and Bolivia: the win of “still here”

In Madagascar (Africa), Niger (Africa), Haiti (North America) and Bolivia (South America), the last victory of the day often happens in the dark. A person lies down and thinks, “This day was not great. It was not special. But I went out, I did what I had to do, I tried to be fair. I am still here.”

There is no music, no medal and no photo. Yet in a world where work is insecure and prices are high, being able to say “still here” at night is a real and deep victory.

What the numbers say in late 2025

In June 2025, the World Bank raised its main global extreme poverty line from 2.15 dollars to 3 dollars per person per day, using updated price data. This shift increased the official count of people in extreme poverty by more than 100 million people and confirmed that hundreds of millions still live on very low incomes. A United Nations statistics note records that this new 3-dollar line is based on typical poverty lines in the fifteen poorest countries, adjusted for the cost of living.

Human Development Reports in 2024 and 2025 describe the slowest progress in global human development in thirty-five years and warn that inequalities between countries are growing again. Analysts expect that a large share of people living under the new 3-dollar line will remain concentrated in countries such as Niger (Africa), Malawi (Africa) and Madagascar (Africa), many of them also affected by conflict or climate risk.

These numbers matter. They help the world see where support is needed. But they do not show the first step out of bed in a hot room, or the long walk to school at altitude, or the choice to stay kind when patience is gone. The statistics are the wide shot. The small daily victories are the close-up.

A tiny Dutch language moment

There is a Dutch phrase that fits this story well: “kleine overwinning”. It means “small victory”. “Kleine” sounds a bit like “klay-nuh”, and “overwinning” like “oh-ver-win-ning”. The phrase is simple but strong: even a very small win is still a win.

A gentle invitation to count one victory

Writers and researchers who study motivation often say that celebrating small wins helps the brain release reward signals, which makes it easier to keep moving through long, hard tasks. In the countries named in this article, that idea is not a trend or a slogan. It is a way to stay standing.

One small victory from today is enough. It might be getting out of bed during a low mood, going to a health check that felt scary, finishing a simple but important task, saying sorry, or saying “no” to an expense that would harm the family budget. Naming that win, writing it down, or sharing it with someone can make it feel real.

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Conclusions

A world held up by small acts

Across Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa), Malawi (Africa), Honduras (North America), Nepal (Asia), Moldova (Europe), Georgia (Europe), Cambodia (Asia), Rwanda (Africa), Uganda (Africa), Zambia (Africa), Laos (Asia), Togo (Africa), Benin (Africa), Madagascar (Africa), Haiti (North America) and Bolivia (South America), late 2025 is full of small daily victories. People get up when they would rather stay in bed. They walk long roads. They study when tired. They stay calm when anger would be easy. They save a little when spending would feel good.

Global charts show poverty lines, growth rates and development scores. Those charts are important, but they are not the whole story. The small acts described here are another layer: the quiet courage that keeps lives moving even when the numbers look hard.

A soft ending for the reader

Reaching this last paragraph is already one small victory. It means there was enough time and calm to follow a story from start to finish. The hope is that this story makes it a little easier to see the strength inside everyday effort, and to recognise that no country, and no person, is only a grey shape on a map.

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Selected References

[1] United Nations Development Programme – “Rich countries attain record human development, but half of the poorest have gone backwards” (press release, March 2024).
https://www.undp.org/press-releases/rich-countries-attain-record-human-development-half-poorest-have-gone-backwards-finds-un-development-programme

[2] United Nations Development Programme – “Human development progress slows to a 35-year low” (press material, May 2025).
https://www.undp.org/pacific/press-releases/human-development-progress-slows-35-year-low-according-un-development-programme-report

[3] United Nations Development Programme – Human Development Report 2023/2024 (global report PDF).
https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/global-report-document/hdr2023-24reporten.pdf

[4] World Bank – “June 2025 Update to Global Poverty Lines” (factsheet).
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/factsheet/2025/06/05/june-2025-update-to-global-poverty-lines

[5] World Bank – “June 2025 global poverty update from the World Bank: 2021 PPPs” (blog).
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/june-2025-global-poverty-update-from-the-world-bank–2021-ppps-a

[6] United Nations Statistics Division – “International poverty line” (SDG indicator 1.1.1a metadata, August 2025, PDF).
https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/files/Metadata-01-01-01a.pdf

[7] Our World in Data – “$3 a day: A new poverty line has shifted the World Bank’s data on extreme poverty. What changed, and why?”
https://ourworldindata.org/new-international-poverty-line-3-dollars-per-day

[8] Our World in Data – “Poverty” topic page.
https://ourworldindata.org/poverty

[9] Harvard Summer School – “Why Celebrating Small Wins Matters” (blog article).
https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/why-celebrating-small-wins-matters/

[10] Harvard Summer School – “Why Celebrating Small Wins Matters?” (YouTube video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQBgNFWsHqE

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Appendix

Extreme poverty
Extreme poverty is a situation in which people live on very little money per day, often below a global line such as 3 dollars, so that they struggle to pay for basic needs like food, shelter and simple health care and have almost no safety net.

Grey countries
Grey countries are nations that rarely appear at the centre of big international news stories and are often shown in neutral colours on maps or charts, which can make their daily struggles and successes easy to ignore.

Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a number used by the United Nations Development Programme that combines data on life expectancy, education and income to give a simple picture of the overall level of development in each country.

Small victories
Small victories are modest everyday successes, such as getting out of bed on a bad morning, finishing a needed task, staying calm in a tense moment, saving a little money or asking for help, which together help a person move through hard times.

Underreported countries
Underreported countries are nations that receive little regular coverage in major global media, so that most people hear about them only through short crisis stories or statistics rather than through detailed human stories.

Key Takeaways

A clear subject from the start

This article tells the story of invisible work at night and unpaid care work in many countries, especially in places often shown in grey on world maps.

People who keep moving while others sleep

From bus drivers and guards to cleaners, market workers and carers, millions of people work when most neighbours are at home and resting.

Work that rarely counts as “work”

Unpaid care in the home, usually done by women and girls, is a huge part of the global economy, but it is still missing from most labour statistics.

A shared reality across continents

The same kind of hidden labour appears in Honduras (North America), Nepal (Asia), Burkina Faso (Africa), Laos (Asia), Yemen (Asia), Ethiopia (Africa), Haiti (North America), Uganda (Africa), Paraguay (South America), Kyrgyzstan (Asia), Cambodia (Asia), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Africa), Tanzania (Africa), Bolivia (South America), Madagascar (Africa), Rwanda (Africa), El Salvador (North America) and many other countries.

A simple wish behind the words

The goal is not to give advice or a plan, but to put into words that this work exists, that it matters, and that lives built around it deserve to be seen.

Story & Details

Cities that hurry home, and those who cannot

In many cities of Honduras (North America) and El Salvador (North America), the air changes after dark. People try to reach home fast. Streets feel tense. Doors close early. Yet not everyone can disappear inside.

A bus driver sits in a half-empty vehicle for the last trip of the night. Without that journey, some passengers would sleep on a bench or outside a station. A street seller folds a stall by the light of one weak bulb, counting the small coins of the day and asking if the risk was worth it. A delivery rider crosses neighbourhoods that even police avoid, only turning back once the quota is paid and the food is delivered.

When nothing happens, no one thanks the driver of the last bus or the rider on the last order. If something bad happens, their names are rarely in the headlines. Still, every night, they keep moving.

A pot of tea in the mountain cold

In Kathmandu and in small villages in Nepal (Asia), the night brings a hard, dry cold. Many people pull a blanket over their shoulders and sleep. Someone else quietly unlocks a small stall and lights a stove.

A metal pot starts to boil. Tea and simple soup are prepared for bus drivers, police officers, workers from long-distance trucks and travellers on the road. Outside, temples and trekking routes may be the pictures seen abroad. Inside this stall, the country looks very different: tired hands, simple cups, short talk, steam on glass.

This is also Nepal (Asia). A life that begins while most houses are dark.

Shining floors that hide the night

In Bolivia (South America) and Paraguay (South America), office towers gleam in the early morning. Floors are bright. Windows are clear. Bins are empty. Visitors see comfort, order and a clean workday.

The invisible part happened hours before.

Cleaners entered after the last meeting ended. They moved from room to room, wiping desks where they will never sit, cleaning toilets, taking out trash, sweeping corridors. For many, this work is part-time, low paid and hard on the body. The next day a manager might say, “It looks very clean today.” Most days, no one asks who did it.

Yet without these workers, the office could not open its doors.

Hospitals that never sleep

In Ethiopia (Africa) and Rwanda (Africa), hospitals stay bright all night. Machines beep. Doors open and close. Families wait on hard chairs.

Nurses check vital signs again and again. A cleaner moves slowly along a corridor with a bucket and a mop, making sure that infection does not spread. A guard remains at the gate, keeping trouble away. A doctor, near the end of a long shift, drinks a quick coffee and tries to stay focused for the next patient.

Somewhere, a baby is born into a noisy ward. Somewhere else, a relative sits with folded hands and quiet hope.

These workers do not often appear in television dramas or glossy adverts. Still, without them, health care cannot exist.

Food as survival, not as a brand

Yemen (Asia) and Haiti (North America) are often linked in news only with war, disaster or crisis. At night, another story unfolds.

In many areas, people cook not for a lifestyle blog but for survival. A woman opens a small kitchen window to sell rice and stew to people leaving late shifts. A man lights a charcoal stove in an alley and fries snacks until the fuel almost runs out. Power cuts are common. Lights fail without warning. The work is hot, tiring and uncertain.

There are no photos on social media of these plates and pots. Yet they feed nurses, guards, drivers and cleaners who must go on.

Markets, motorbikes and moving goods

In Uganda (Africa) and Tanzania (Africa), night life has many faces. Outside clubs and bars, another rhythm beats.

Boda boda motorcycle taxis weave through traffic, carrying people home from late work or night shifts. Long trucks roll towards the next town. In large markets, staff unload sacks of vegetables, grain and fruit in the dark. By dawn, stalls will look full and fresh. Few shoppers think about who carried those heavy loads while most of the city slept.

These hands are part of the silent engine of trade.

Guards at the edge of the light

In Burkina Faso (Africa) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Africa), the line between safety and fear can feel thin. Many homes, small shops and offices have a guard on duty.

Often the guard sits on a plastic chair by a gate, with a torch, a radio or an old phone. In Madagascar (Africa) and Laos (Asia), security can also be a neighbour who takes a turn to walk the street at night, or a caretaker who sleeps in a corner of a shop.

The job is simple to describe and hard to carry: stay awake, notice danger, be there. If nothing happens, almost no one says, “Thank you for your night.” If something does happen, questions often come too fast and too late.

The work that does not look like a job

In Kyrgyzstan (Asia), Cambodia (Asia), Malawi (Africa), Benin (Africa) and almost everywhere else, another kind of night work fills homes.

One person, most often a woman or an older girl, stays up to wash dishes, sweep the floor, prepare food for the next day, iron or fix school uniforms, check homework, and look after sick or very young family members. A baby cries and needs to be fed again. A child wakes from a bad dream and needs comfort. Medicine must be given at regular times.

There is no wage for this work. There is no payslip to prove it. It does not show up in most economic charts, even though international organisations count more than 16 billion hours of unpaid domestic and care work every single day across the world. [1][2]

This quiet work keeps families standing.

One world, many nights

From Haiti (North America) to Nepal (Asia), from Bolivia (South America) to Uganda (Africa), from Ethiopia (Africa) to Cambodia (Asia) and from Rwanda (Africa) to El Salvador (North America), there are thousands of versions of the same story.

Someone is on a bus, at a gate, in a ward, by a stove or at a sink while other people sleep. Someone counts coins, checks locks, cleans a floor or holds a hand. Pay may be low or not exist at all. Respect may be missing. Still, these people hold together homes, streets and services.

The world works at night, even when the world prefers not to see it.

Conclusions

A quiet recognition

The reality of night work and unpaid care work is not new. What changes is whether it is named.

Studies now show in numbers what many already know in daily life: unpaid care keeps hundreds of millions of women outside paid jobs, and night workers often face health risks and broken sleep. [1][2][3] Behind these numbers stand cleaners, guards, drivers, nurses, market workers and carers who are rarely at the centre of stories.

This article simply places a light over that reality. When a clean office, a safe door, a warm meal or a calm patient appears in the morning, there is almost always someone behind it whose working day did not match the clock on the wall.

A world that takes their work seriously becomes easier to live in for everyone, not only for those who already sleep well.

Selected References

[1] International Labour Organization, “Women do 4 times more unpaid care work than men in Asia and the Pacific”, 27 June 2018.
https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/ilo-women-do-4-times-more-unpaid-care-work-men-asia-and-pacific

[2] International Labour Organization, “Unpaid care work prevents 708 million women from participating in the labour market”, statistical brief and news release, 29 October 2024.
https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/unpaid-care-work-prevents-708-million-women-participating-labour-market

[3] Health Council of the Netherlands, “Health risks of night shift work”, advisory report, 24 October 2017.
https://www.healthcouncil.nl/documents/2017/10/24/health-risks-of-night-shift-work

[4] United Nations Development Programme, Latin America and the Caribbean, “The missing piece: valuing women’s unrecognized contribution to the economy”, 8 March 2024.
https://www.undp.org/latin-america/blog/missing-piece-valuing-womens-unrecognized-contribution-economy

[5] International Labour Organization, “Decent Work in the Care Economy” (video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed8kOnv0aWw

Appendix

Boda boda
Boda boda is a common term in East Africa for a motorcycle taxi that carries passengers or goods, often used by people travelling at night in countries such as Uganda (Africa) and Tanzania (Africa).

Care economy
Care economy refers to all paid and unpaid work that involves looking after children, older people, sick people and adults who need help, including both formal care services and informal support in homes and communities.

Grey countries
Grey countries describes nations that are often shown in dull colours or as simple blocks on global charts and maps, which makes their people and stories seem less visible than those from richer or more powerful regions.

Invisible work
Invisible work is labour that is real and necessary, such as cleaning, guarding, driving, cooking or caring, but that is rarely noticed, properly paid or counted in official statistics.

Night work
Night work means any work, paid or unpaid, done during the hours when most people in a place are usually asleep, including late shifts in hospitals, security rounds, market unloading and domestic chores after dark.

Unpaid care work
Unpaid care work includes looking after children, older relatives, sick family members and doing daily chores such as cooking, cleaning and washing clothes at home, without direct pay, even though it takes time and energy every day.

Key Takeaways

• The article looks at daily window views in countries that rarely appear in global news, such as Niger (Africa), Lesotho (Africa), Djibouti (Africa), Timor-Leste (Asia), Burundi (Africa), Sierra Leone (Africa), Togo (Africa), Laos (Asia), Kyrgyzstan (Asia), Tajikistan (Asia), Madagascar (Africa), Cabo Verde (Africa), Guinea-Bissau (Africa), the Central African Republic (Africa), Vanuatu (Oceania), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), and the Comoros (Africa).
• It follows a simple day cycle—morning, midday, afternoon, night, and very early morning—to show work, noise, heat, fear, beauty, and rest through the frame of a window.
• It invites readers, in December 2025, to join a quiet global experiment: describe what they can see from their own window and share this idea with someone whose view is very different.

Story & Details

Global news in December 2025 still focuses on a small group of places. Many others stay almost invisible. Some of them appear on United Nations lists as “least developed countries,” with low income and high vulnerability, and studies show that large parts of Africa get only thin and crisis-heavy coverage in international media. Behind these labels are real streets, real houses, and real windows.

The focus here is on what daily life looks like when someone simply pulls back a curtain or opens a door in countries that are often treated as grey spots on a map: Niger (Africa), Lesotho (Africa), Djibouti (Africa), Timor-Leste (Asia), Burundi (Africa), Sierra Leone (Africa), Togo (Africa), Laos (Asia), Kyrgyzstan (Asia), Tajikistan (Asia), Madagascar (Africa), Cabo Verde (Africa), Guinea-Bissau (Africa), the Central African Republic (Africa), Vanuatu (Oceania), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), and the Comoros (Africa). The view is ordinary. That is exactly the point.

In the morning in Niger (Africa), a person opens a window or a simple doorway. The first sight is often dust and hard light. Children walk to school. Women carry water or goods in metal bowls or plastic containers. Motorbikes pass and kick dry earth into the air. Chickens search between stones for something to eat. There is no postcard, but there is movement. For the person watching, this first look can set the mood: it can feel like the start of a heavy day, or it can feel a little lighter.

In Lesotho (Africa), houses sit among highlands. A morning view reaches over green or brown hills, depending on the season. Smoke rises from low houses as fires burn for cooking or warmth. People walk in coats and scarves. Sheep and cattle move slowly across the slopes. The scene is beautiful, but beauty does not pay school fees or food. Still, standing at the window before work or study can make daily worries seem smaller for a short time.

In Djibouti (Africa), some windows look toward a busy port, others toward tight city streets or simple neighbourhoods on the edges. A person may see lines of trucks and stacks of containers, or small shops and children playing with handmade toys. The sky is bright and often promises heat. On a world map this is a strategic point for trade and military bases, but from a window it is mainly neighbours, traffic, and an open horizon.

By midday, the light is high and sharp in Timor-Leste (Asia). Hills around towns and villages turn pale in the sun. Clothes hang from lines between houses. Motorbikes climb steep roads and roll back down. Children come home from school, some in uniforms that are already dusty. A dog sleeps exactly in the path everyone uses. The country has a young history as an independent state and carries memories of conflict, but the view through glass at noon is simple: people trying to get through the day.

In Burundi (Africa), a window over a dirt road shows bright colour. Street sellers wear vivid dresses and shirts. Bicycles carry sacks, crates or bundles that look too big to stay balanced. Children play football with a worn ball in a space that is almost a road, almost a field. Someone sweeps the entrance of a shop or home, pushing red dust aside. The sound is thick: music from a speaker, the roar of motorbikes, loud voices, maybe a radio or a megaphone. For people here, this mix is normal; for someone used to quiet streets, it could be a shock.

In Sierra Leone (Africa), a room with a window toward the sea holds a kind of luxury that many tourists pay for. Water shines in the sun. Small boats lie on the surface or move toward the horizon. The sky feels wide. A room facing the hills or a crowded settlement shows another reality: metal roofs, narrow paths, children running, women walking with large loads balanced on their heads. Both views are true. Both exist next to each other in the same country, though only a small part of the world ever sees either.

Later in the day, light softens and shadows grow longer. In Togo (Africa), a street view in late afternoon glows orange as the sun sinks. Motorbikes weave through gaps between cars, pedestrians, and market stalls. Food sellers light fires and set large pots on them. Office workers leave for home, tired but still talking on phones. Someone sits on a plastic chair beside the road and simply watches. Headlines in other parts of the world rarely mention Togo (Africa), but here the city moves with its own fast rhythm.

In Laos (Asia), a window may open on a calm river, a temple roof, or a busy road lined with signs and heavy cables. In the gentle hours before sunset, monks in bright robes walk past. Tourists wander, looking at maps or phones. Neighbours sweep dust and leaves away from their doors. The sky turns pink or gold. Money, exams, jobs and travel papers stay present in many minds, but, for a small moment, the window allows quiet looking without planning or fear.

Further north and west, in Kyrgyzstan (Asia) and Tajikistan (Asia), many towns and villages sit close to mountains. A late afternoon view from a house or flat often shows sharp white or brown peaks, not far away. The sun hits those masses and makes them look still and solid. Inside, someone stirs a pot, scrolls through messages, or tries to finish homework. Another person thinks about leaving for seasonal work in another country. Outside, the mountains do not move. They are a reminder that some things change every season, and others hold their shape over many lifetimes.

Night changes what can be seen. In parts of Madagascar (Africa), streets have few lamps. From a window, houses and trees sink into darkness, and stars become clear. Many people sit outside because their rooms are too hot. A television plays loudly in one home. In another, music from a mobile phone fills the yard. A baby cries. A dog barks. Someone laughs at a joke. Through the window, the night is not empty; it is full of small scenes that overlap.

On an island in Cabo Verde (Africa), a window may face down a hill toward the sea or across roofs in a higher neighbourhood. When the sun has gone, points of light appear in lines and clusters. Music floats through the air. People talk in doorways or on steps. A motorbike or car passes every now and then. The ocean may not be visible in the dark, but its presence can be felt in the wind, the salt on the skin, and the damp air.

In Guinea-Bissau (Africa) and the Central African Republic (Africa), the night can be very dark when power is weak or absent. From some windows there is almost nothing to see but shapes. Still, voices carry clearly. A neighbour’s radio sends out music or news. Human figures pass as faint outlines. In such hours, common worries sit close: how to find enough money, whether the area is safe, who is ill, and what the future may hold. The window is not only an opening to the street; it is also a mirror that throws back the face of the person who is watching.

Then there is the deep night and the very early morning, when most people sleep. In Vanuatu (Oceania), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), and the Comoros (Africa), a person awake at three in the morning may see a sky thick with stars, a gentle rain on corrugated roofs, a quiet sea, or an empty road. Someone works a night shift in a hospital or a port. Someone sits beside a family member who is ill. Someone lies awake because of the heat, or because thoughts refuse to stop. The wider world does not record what they see at that hour, but it is still part of the real story of these places.

The idea at the heart of this article is to turn these images into a shared practice. Readers are invited to send a short message or comment with four simple facts: the country and city or town where they are, the part of the day it is, what they can see from their window or door right now, and one thing they like and one thing that hurts or tires them about that view. They are then encouraged to pass the same invitation to someone whose window is very different: a person in another country, someone in a rural area if they live in a city or the other way round, an online friend who often talks about their neighbourhood, or a relative who has moved abroad.

If many people do this, then a small experiment begins to take shape. A window in Niger (Africa) with dust and chickens connects, in a quiet way, to a balcony in Laos (Asia) over a river, a high-floor flat in Kyrgyzstan (Asia) facing mountains, a front step in Sierra Leone (Africa) near the sea, or a house in Vanuatu (Oceania) listening to the wind before dawn. None of these places need to wait for breaking news to appear in someone else’s field of vision. They can be seen through the words of the people who live there.

At the centre of it all stands a simple truth: even a “boring” window—one that shows only a wall, a narrow alley, a few cables, some dust and a scrap of sky—is still a view onto the world. Through that small frame, it is possible to watch seasons change, children grow taller, adults age, shops open and close, and moods shift from hope to fear and back again. The value lies not in how impressive the view looks, but in the act of paying attention to it.

Conclusions

Everyday life in Niger (Africa), Lesotho (Africa), Djibouti (Africa), Timor-Leste (Asia), Burundi (Africa), Sierra Leone (Africa), Togo (Africa), Laos (Asia), Kyrgyzstan (Asia), Tajikistan (Asia), Madagascar (Africa), Cabo Verde (Africa), Guinea-Bissau (Africa), the Central African Republic (Africa), Vanuatu (Oceania), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), and the Comoros (Africa) rarely leads international bulletins. Yet from each of these countries, someone looks out of a window or a doorway every day and reads the world in light, dust, noise, water, traffic, and silence.

The simple act of sharing these window views can soften the flat, grey image that often surrounds less reported countries. It suggests another way to think about the idea of “least developed” or “far away”: not as empty labels, but as places where mornings begin, nights fall, worries build, and joy still shows up in the middle of it all.

In December 2025, when data dashboards and news feeds remain crowded with a small set of locations, looking out of a window in a quieter corner of the map and describing what is there becomes a small but real kind of storytelling. It does not solve structural problems. It does, however, make it harder to see any part of the planet as a blank space.

Selected References

[1] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). “UN list of least developed countries.” Accessed December 2025. https://unctad.org/topic/least-developed-countries/list

[2] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “The least developed countries (LDC) category.” Accessed December 2025. https://policy.desa.un.org/least-developed-countries

[3] United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “Human Development Reports.” Accessed December 2025. https://hdr.undp.org/

[4] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). “The Least Developed Countries Report 2022” [YouTube video]. Accessed December 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d302G7PwTl4

[5] World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). “Global media tell only part of Africa’s story – new report shows which outlets perform best and worst.” Published September 2024, accessed December 2025. https://wan-ifra.org/2024/09/global-media-tell-only-part-of-africas-story-new-report-shows-which-outlets-perform-best-and-worst/

Appendix

Everyday view
This term refers to the ordinary things a person can see from a familiar place such as a window, door, balcony, or yard, including people, streets, buildings, sky, plants, animals, light, and weather.

Grey countries
This phrase describes countries that appear rarely in international news or data dashboards and are therefore treated as blank or low-detail areas in the mental maps of people who live elsewhere.

Least developed countries
This is a formal United Nations category for states with low income, weak human development indicators, and high vulnerability to economic and environmental shocks; several of the countries mentioned in the article are placed in this group.

Window experiment
This is the simple idea of asking people in many different countries to describe what they see from their windows at about the same point in time and to pass on the invitation to others, creating a chain of everyday views that cross borders.

Key Takeaways

• This article looks at how very hot nights, heavy rain and power cuts feel in the body in countries such as Sudan (Africa), Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa), Bangladesh (Asia), Pakistan (Asia), Mozambique (Africa), Madagascar (Africa), Malawi (Africa), Somalia (Africa), Ethiopia (Africa), Benin (Africa), Burkina Faso (Africa), Sierra Leone (Africa), Vanuatu (Oceania), Solomon Islands (Oceania), Fiji (Oceania), Papua New Guinea (Oceania) and Myanmar (Asia).
• It focuses on simple, daily moments: trying to sleep when the air never cools, keeping books dry when the floor floods, or working and studying when the lights go off.
• It shows that climate change is already changing life in many of these places by December 2025, even when their names appear only as small lines in reports or stay grey on global maps.
• It invites readers, including those in countries like the Netherlands (Europe) or Portugal (Europe), to notice how their own local weather shapes sleep, work, study and mood.
• It offers a gentle exercise: think about today’s weather, how it holds life back, and one thing that is still loved about it, then connect that story with someone living under another difficult sky.

Story & Details

What this article is about

The subject is simple and very physical: how heat, rain, wind and darkness feel on the skin, in the lungs and in the mind. Reports talk about average temperatures, extreme events and vulnerable populations. People talk about wet pillows, buzzing mosquitos, muddy floors and sudden silence when the fan stops. Both levels describe the same world.

By December 2025, more heatwaves, heavier rain and stronger storms are already part of daily life in many regions. Yet the places that live with them most often are rarely at the centre of global headlines or statistics. Many of them stay as pale, anonymous shapes on global maps. Here, they step into the light through very small, very human scenes.

Hot nights that do not cool down: Sudan (Africa), Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa)

In parts of Sudan (Africa), Niger (Africa) and Chad (Africa), some nights feel almost the same as noon. The sun is gone, but the heat stays close to the ground. The air is thick, still and heavy. The body looks for rest and cannot find it.

People use what they have. A fan, if there is electricity. A small air conditioner, if someone is lucky enough to afford one. A piece of cardboard moving back and forth in a slow rhythm. A mat on the flat roof, hoping for a little breeze above the house. A chair by the door, watching the dark street and listening for wind.

Sleep comes in short pieces. Many wake up tired before the new day even begins. That tiredness does not appear in charts, but it lives in every task the next morning, from carrying water to staying awake in school.

Humid heat and buzzing nights: Burkina Faso (Africa), Benin (Africa), Sierra Leone (Africa)

In countries like Burkina Faso (Africa), Benin (Africa) and Sierra Leone (Africa), heat mixes with strong humidity. The body does not only feel hot. It feels sticky. Sheets stay damp. Clothes cling to the skin.

At night there is a constant choice. Close windows and doors to keep out insects and reduce the risk of malaria, but let the room stay hotter. Or open everything to let in air, and accept more mosquitos, more bites and more itching. Many families live inside this small, nightly negotiation, deciding which discomfort hurts less.

Fans, if they exist, sometimes turn slowly because the power is weak or expensive. Nets protect some beds. Others sleep without them and wake up scratching their arms and legs. The climate is not a distant idea for these households. It is the reason why a child moves from one end of the bed to the other, again and again, hoping for a cooler spot.

Rain that turns streets into rivers: Bangladesh (Asia) and Pakistan (Asia)

In Bangladesh (Asia) and Pakistan (Asia), rain can be both a friend and a sudden, dangerous guest. A light shower cools the air and waters crops. A heavy rain that does not stop can bring water into every part of life.

During intense monsoon periods, streets in low areas can turn into brown rivers. Water presses under doors and into rooms. Mattresses, school notebooks, uniforms, work tools and family documents all risk getting soaked. For many families, replacing these things is not easy.

In recent years, studies have shown that human-driven climate change makes some of these heavy rains stronger and more likely, including deadly floods in Pakistan (Asia). Houses collapse, crops are damaged and many people must leave home for safer ground. Yet when the water goes down, people often return to the same spots because work, land, neighbours and memories are there.

Even after a flood, many adults still go out the next day to sell food, drive rickshaws, teach, or clean, even if shoes are still wet. Children may go back to school with damp books and a floor that smells of mud.

Cyclones that redraw the map: Mozambique (Africa), Madagascar (Africa), Malawi (Africa)

For Mozambique (Africa), Madagascar (Africa) and Malawi (Africa), cyclones are not abstract weather events. They are storms that break trees, knock down power poles, flood fields and tear off roofs. Tropical Cyclone Freddy in 2023 and Cyclone Gamane in 2024 were two recent examples that brought heavy rain, wind and flood damage to these countries, with lives lost and hundreds of thousands of people affected.

When a cyclone approaches, people often secure doors with whatever wood or metal they can find. They move valuables and food to higher shelves. Some travel to stronger buildings, schools or churches if there is time. Some pray. Others simply wait, listening for the first loud gusts and for the roof to hold.

After the storm, the sky may turn blue again, but the landscape has changed. A wall is gone. A bridge has fallen. A field is covered in water and stones. Families begin the slow work of cleaning, repairing and planting again, even while knowing that another cyclone may come in a year or two.

Lights out in the storm: Ethiopia (Africa), Malawi (Africa), Somalia (Africa), Sudan (Africa)

In parts of Ethiopia (Africa) and Malawi (Africa), a strong storm often means the same thing inside the house: the lights go out. Thunder arrives, the power cuts, and the search for a candle, battery lamp or phone torch begins.

The fan stops in a second, and with it the breeze that made a very hot evening bearable. If a water pump depends on electricity, taps fall dry. School work becomes harder as children try to read near small flames or glowing screens. Some parents ask children to sleep instead, because studying in the dark feels too hard or unsafe.

In areas of Somalia (Africa) and Sudan (Africa), electricity can be irregular even without a storm. Some families or small shops use fuel generators. These machines are noisy and expensive to run, so they are often turned on only for short moments: to pump water, cool a freezer, run a small workshop or charge phones. When the engine stops, the sound of insects, voices and distant dogs fills the air again, along with heat and darkness.

Constant “plan B” living builds quiet fatigue. People adapt and keep going, but the effort of adapting all the time also has a cost.

Islands close to the waterline: Vanuatu (Oceania), Solomon Islands (Oceania), Fiji (Oceania)

On islands such as Vanuatu (Oceania), Solomon Islands (Oceania) and Fiji (Oceania), the sea gives food, work and beauty. The same sea is rising and pushing closer to homes, roads, churches and graveyards.

Stronger storms bring higher waves and salt water into gardens. High tides now reach spots that used to stay dry. Some coastal villages in Fiji (Oceania) have already moved to higher ground, and national plans speak of many more possible relocations in the coming decades. In some parts of the Pacific, sea levels are rising faster than the global average, which adds pressure on small islands with most people living near the shore.

At night, people hear waves hitting a little nearer than before. Some talk about the need to move inland. Others feel torn between safety and the wish to stay close to the graves of grandparents and to fishing grounds. The word “planned relocation” sounds technical, but for these communities it means leaving a home village and trying to build a new one, often with fewer guarantees than before.

In these islands, people still go fishing, welcome tourists, sing in church, play rugby and attend school. Life continues, even as salt water slowly rewrites the shape of the coast.

Hills that can move: Papua New Guinea (Oceania) and Myanmar (Asia)

In parts of Papua New Guinea (Oceania) and Myanmar (Asia), steep hills and intense rain live side by side. When very heavy downpours fall for hours or days, the ground on a slope can begin to slide. Soil, rocks and trees move together, and houses built on or under the hill can be hit.

At night during long rain, many adults listen not only to drops on the roof, but also to deeper sounds: a crack in the earth, a sudden rumble, a change in the way water flows near the house. Children may sleep without worry, knowing only that school might be closed if the road is blocked.

At the same time, these countries face extreme heat events. In recent years, heatwaves across South and Southeast Asia, including Myanmar (Asia), have closed schools, hit workers and strained health systems. For many families, the same year can bring both very hot weeks and very wet, dangerous days.

Grey countries and faraway readers: Netherlands (Europe), Portugal (Europe) and others

Global charts often show strong colours over large, richer countries and pale or “grey” colours over smaller or poorer ones. The term “grey countries” in this article refers to those places that are often missing from graphs or databases, even when their people are already living with clear climate impacts.

Someone in a small commuting city in the Netherlands (Europe) or in a coastal town in Portugal (Europe) may read about these “grey countries” while sitting in a quiet apartment, a student room or a night bus. The local weather might seem mild in comparison, but it still shapes daily life. On hot weeks, sleep is shorter and air conditioning or fans cost money. In very wet months, bikes and trains are affected, and time outdoors changes.

Researchers and journalists have also started to describe how climate change alters everyday life in many other places: higher food and energy prices, more nights with poor sleep, more bad air days and seasonal allergies that start earlier or last longer, even far from the Sahel or the Pacific.

A tiny exercise in connection

This article imagines a simple exercise that anyone, anywhere in the world, can try. It has four steps.

First, name the country and city where life happens day to day, whether that is in Sudan (Africa), Bangladesh (Asia), Fiji (Oceania), the Netherlands (Europe), Portugal (Europe) or anywhere else.

Second, describe the weather today in plain words: hot, cold, rainy, very wet, dry, windy or heavy with humidity.

Third, name one way this weather limits something important: sleeping well, working outside, concentrating at school, moving through the city, visiting relatives or friends.

Fourth, look for one thing that is still loved about this climate, even when it is hard: the smell after rain, a familiar wind, the colour of the sky at dusk, the sound of frogs after a storm.

Sharing such a small description with someone in another country can turn abstract news into a shared picture. One person may be reading this under a tin roof in Mozambique (Africa) after a cyclone season, another under a concrete ceiling in Pakistan (Asia) after a long monsoon, another on a boat or in a hostel room in Vanuatu (Oceania), and another in a heated flat in the Netherlands (Europe).

A short Dutch language note

In the Netherlands (Europe), many workers find jobs through a Dutch temporary employment agency. In Dutch, the word for such an agency is “uitzendbureau”. The term is common in everyday life and literally refers to an office that “sends workers out” to different companies. During heatwaves or storms, people who work through a Dutch temporary employment agency may also face hard conditions: very hot warehouses, long commutes in the rain or shifts that end late at night when public transport is disrupted.

Conclusions

Extreme heat, heavy rain, storms and power cuts are often discussed in global meetings, strategies and risk indexes. In daily life they appear as small details: cold water kept in a clay pot, a family sleeping on the roof, a school desk still damp from a recent flood, a candle stub used down to the last centimetre during a blackout, a seawall made of sandbags in front of a house, or a wooden house on a hill that now has small cracks nearby.

By December 2025, it is already clear that many of the hardest-hit places are not the ones most often seen on the news ticker. Countries such as Sudan (Africa), Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa), Burkina Faso (Africa), Benin (Africa), Sierra Leone (Africa), Ethiopia (Africa), Malawi (Africa), Somalia (Africa), Mozambique (Africa), Madagascar (Africa), Bangladesh (Asia), Pakistan (Asia), Vanuatu (Oceania), Solomon Islands (Oceania), Fiji (Oceania), Papua New Guinea (Oceania) and Myanmar (Asia) live with strong climate impacts while often remaining “grey” in the global imagination.

Yet people in those countries laugh, study, love, build and rebuild. People in other regions, including the Netherlands (Europe) and Portugal (Europe), also live with changing weather and growing climate pressure, even if in different forms.

Not every person needs to become a specialist in climate science. It already helps when more people can put simple words to how the local sky feels and can listen when others do the same. When stories about hot nights, sudden floods, shaking hills and dark rooms are shared, countries stop being distant shapes on a map and become places where real lives unfold. That change in attention is small, but it is a beginning.

Selected References

[1] Climate Adaptation Platform. “Climate Change’s Impact on Everyday Life.” Article, 24 June 2025. https://climateadaptationplatform.com/climate-changes-impact-on-everyday-life/

[2] World Bank. “An Unsustainable Life: The Impact of Heat on Health and the Economy of Bangladesh.” Report, 2024. https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/099111024033034518

[3] Associates for Innovative Research; Concern Worldwide. “Extreme Heat in Bangladesh: A Study about Heat Wave Exposure, Vulnerability, Impact and Response Options.” August 2025. https://admin.concern.net/sites/default/files/documents/2025-08/HEAT%20study%20v%2017072025%20FINAL%20with%20frontpage.pdf

[4] Reuters. “Rising Heat Cost Bangladesh $1.8 Billion Last Year, Says World Bank.” 16 September 2025. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/rising-heat-cost-bangladesh-18-billion-last-year-says-world-bank-2025-09-16/

[5] World Weather Attribution. “Climate Change Increased Rainfall Associated with Tropical Cyclones Hitting Highly Vulnerable Communities in Madagascar, Mozambique & Malawi.” 11 April 2022. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-increased-rainfall-associated-with-tropical-cyclones-hitting-highly-vulnerable-communities-in-madagascar-mozambique-malawi/

[6] World Meteorological Organization. “Tropical Cyclone Freddy Hits Madagascar and Mozambique.” News release, 23 February 2023. https://wmo.int/media/news/tropical-cyclone-freddy-hits-madagascar-and-mozambique

[7] World Weather Attribution. “Climate Change Made the Deadly Heatwaves that Hit Millions of Highly Vulnerable People Across Asia More Frequent and Extreme.” 14 May 2024. https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-made-the-deadly-heatwaves-that-hit-millions-of-highly-vulnerable-people-across-asia-more-frequent-and-extreme/

[8] Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). “676 Communities Face Possible Relocation in Fiji as Climate Impacts Escalate.” 13 August 2025. https://www.sprep.org/news/676-communities-face-possible-relocation-in-fiji-as-climate-impacts-escalate

[9] Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). “Water Security Research to Assist Coastal Communities to Relocate in the Pacific.” 18 July 2024. https://www.aciar.gov.au/media-search/news/water-security-research-assist-coastal-communities-relocate-pacific

[10] United Nations Development Programme. “UNDP Climate Resilience Project – Documentary Film.” YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JMVjW6Y36Y

Appendix

Blackout
A blackout is a period when electricity stops working in an area, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for many hours, often because of storms, heat, technical problems or limits in the power system.

Cyclone
A cyclone is a very strong rotating storm that forms over warm oceans and brings intense rain, high waves and powerful winds; in different regions similar storms are also called hurricanes or typhoons.

Grey countries
Grey countries, in the sense used here, are nations that appear only weakly or not at all in global charts, media stories or statistics, even though their people already live with strong climate impacts in daily life.

Planned relocation
Planned relocation is the organised and usually permanent move of a group of people from one place to another because their original home area has become too risky, for example due to sea level rise, coastal erosion, repeated floods or landslides.

Sahel
The Sahel is a long, semi-dry belt of land south of the Sahara Desert, stretching across several African countries from west to east, where people live with strong heat, marked dry and rainy seasons and growing pressure from climate change.

Temporary employment agency
A temporary employment agency is a company that connects workers with short-term or flexible jobs at other firms, often handling contracts, pay and scheduling while workers move between different workplaces.

Uitzendbureau
Uitzendbureau is the Dutch word for a temporary employment agency, combining “uitzenden” (to send out) and “bureau” (office), and it is widely used in the Netherlands to describe organisations that place people in temporary jobs.

Key Takeaways

• This article looks at everyday school life for children in Mozambique (Africa), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Africa), Yemen (Asia), Afghanistan (Asia), Nepal (Asia), Haiti (North America), Guatemala (North America), Sierra Leone (Africa), Sudan (Africa), Rwanda (Africa), Mali (Africa), Togo (Africa), Cambodia (Asia), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), Honduras (North America) and Niger (Africa), often called “grey countries” because they rarely appear in global news.
• The focus is on simple scenes: children walking long distances to school, crowded classrooms with few books, homework done after work in fields, markets or factories, and dreams that sound very similar to those of children anywhere else.
• Recent global reports show that, even in late twenty twenty-five, hundreds of millions of children are still out of school, most of them in low-income or crisis-affected countries, so every child who manages to sit in a classroom in these places is doing something quietly remarkable.
• Humanitarian and education organisations describe schooling in emergencies as a lifeline, because a classroom can give safety, routine and hope in the middle of war, disaster or deep poverty.

Story & Details

A simple idea: one classroom, many countries

Imagine a single classroom that stretches across the world. One part stands in a village in Mozambique (Africa). Another part lies under a sheet-metal roof in Guatemala (North America). A third part is a tent in Sudan (Africa) after people fled fighting. The walls, floors and languages change, but the scene is similar: a child with a school bag, more full of dreams than of notebooks.

These are countries that often stay blank in maps of clicks and headlines. They are not always the centre of global debates, yet millions of children there wake up and try to reach school every day. The year is late twenty twenty-five, and big reports talk about numbers and graphs, but the day of a child still starts with a simple question: “Can I get to class today?”

Morning: long roads to school

In many small villages in Mozambique (Africa), the school day begins on dusty paths. Children walk several kilometres, some in old shoes, some barefoot. On the way they share a piece of bread, tell jokes, sing small songs and talk about what the teacher explained the day before. Dust sticks to their clothes and their skin. For some, this walk is the longest and most dangerous part of the day.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Africa), the path to school often runs through thick green forest. When heavy rain falls, the ground turns into deep mud and the forest seems to eat the road. Uniforms, where there are uniforms, are dirty before the children arrive. Some carry a notebook and a pencil. Others write on loose sheets of paper or remember the lesson in their heads. They still arrive late, wet and tired, but they arrive.

In Yemen (Asia) and Afghanistan (Asia), the road to school is not only long. It can also be risky because of conflict and insecurity. Families quietly ask themselves each morning if it is safe enough to send children out. Money is tight, news is worrying, but many boys and girls insist. They say they want to be doctors, teachers, engineers or journalists. Some stay home when things feel too dangerous or when they must work. Those who reach the classroom often carry not only their own hopes, but also the dreams of friends and brothers who could not go that day.

In the hills of Nepal (Asia), the way to school climbs up and down the mountain. Children walk along narrow paths, step by step, and cross rivers on hanging or simple wooden bridges. The air is cold. The view is beautiful. The risk is real, especially when there is rain or snow. Missing one day can feel like putting the dream of a different life one more step away.

Inside the classroom: what is there and what is missing

In Haiti (North America), a classroom can be full of life and empty of materials at the same time. There may be forty or fifty children in a small room, with broken desks and cracked walls. Often there is only one book for several students. A teacher uses chalk and a worn blackboard to explain new ideas. The children fall quiet when the lesson starts. Their eyes shine when they finally understand something that seemed hard before. Seen from outside, cameras might show only ruins. Inside, there is also patient hope.

In Guatemala (North America) and Honduras (North America), many schools are simple concrete buildings. Roofs of thin metal sheets make loud noise when it rains. Lessons move between Spanish and Indigenous languages, and children copy from the board because there are not enough printed pages for everyone. Cars, buses and street vendors can be heard through open windows without glass. Some days there is no electricity. Some days the water tap is dry. Some classes have no teacher. What does not run out is the will to learn.

In Sierra Leone (Africa) and Rwanda (Africa), classrooms sit on ground marked by war, epidemics and genocide in past years. Many parents there never had the chance to finish primary school. Now their sons and daughters sit at desks that communities rebuilt with great effort. Some teachers are very young and are the first in their families with a diploma. Lessons in reading and numbers mix with talks about health, peace and how to live together without violence. Learning to read is also learning to imagine a future that is not just a copy of the past.

In Sudan (Africa) and Mali (Africa), conflict, displacement and political unrest have often broken up normal schooling. Classes sometimes take place under tents, in borrowed church halls, or simply in the open air. There are few notebooks and few walls, but there is still a front of the class where a teacher stands, and there are still children repeating new words. In these places, a simple maths or reading lesson becomes a small act of resistance: even if everything around them is unstable, learning continues.

After class: work and homework

When the last lesson ends in Togo (Africa) or Niger (Africa), the day is far from over. Many children go straight to work. Some help in the fields, planting or harvesting. Others sell fruit, snacks or small items on the street. Many look after younger brothers and sisters or walk to collect water. Homework is done when there is time: in the last light of the sun, under a weak bulb, or by the flame of a candle. The problem is not that these children do not care about school. They simply have a long list of duties.

In Cambodia (Asia), the sound of school bells mixes with the noise of nearby factories and workshops. Some students go to class in the morning and work in the afternoon. Others work first and study later. Homework may be done on the floor, on a shared bed or on the family table where people also sew or sell goods. Many children keep going with their exercises not because they fear the teacher, but because they hold a quiet hope that study can open more doors than were open for their parents.

In Papua New Guinea (Oceania), the walk home can be as hard as the walk to school. Rain turns paths into rivers of mud. Children protect their notebooks in plastic bags or under their clothes. At home, they live between many languages. They hear local tongues from family and neighbours and use another language for school. Stories from elders mix with written stories from textbooks. The world may not know much about these local languages, but children speak them well and work to add one more language on top.

Dreams that sound familiar

In all these countries, when children are asked what they want to be, their answers sound very familiar. A girl in Mozambique (Africa) says she wants to be a doctor. A boy in Nepal (Asia) says he wants to be an engineer. A girl in Haiti (North America) dreams of being a teacher. A boy in Cambodia (Asia) wants to be a football player. Others talk about becoming nurses, pilots, computer workers or small business owners. Many say they simply want their own children to study more than they could.

The dreams are not the main problem. The path is. Schools are fragile. Teachers are often underpaid or not paid on time. Books, desks and toilets are missing. In some places there is conflict, hunger or disaster. In late twenty twenty-four, a major education report said that about two hundred and fifty-one million children and young people were still out of school worldwide, and that progress in cutting this number had almost stopped over nearly ten years. That means the road from dream to job is still blocked for many children in the very countries where education could change lives the most.

A tiny Dutch language corner

There is also a small link to classrooms in the Netherlands (Europe). In Dutch, the word for school is “school”, almost the same as in English, and the word for class is “klas”. A child in Rotterdam (Europe) and a child in Rwanda (Africa) may live very different lives, yet both can say they are going to school or to class. This tiny language bridge is a reminder that, under many layers of difference, the idea of a classroom is shared.

Conclusions

The picture that appears from Mozambique (Africa) to Papua New Guinea (Oceania) is not simple. There are long walks through dust, forest and mud. There are classrooms with cracked walls and only one book for many small hands. There are children who go to work in fields, markets and factories as soon as the bell rings. There are also jokes on the road, songs on the path, bright eyes at the moment of understanding and teachers who keep going even when their own situation is hard.

Global reports in twenty twenty-four and twenty twenty-five show that the number of children without school is still very high, especially in low-income and crisis-hit countries. At the same time, education agencies and child-rights groups call school a lifeline in emergencies, because a simple classroom can give routine, safety and a sense of future in the middle of chaos. In this light, every child who reaches a class in Yemen (Asia), Sudan (Africa) or Haiti (North America), and every teacher who opens a lesson there, is doing quiet but important work.

The idea of one shared classroom across many “grey countries” helps make this clear. These places are not grey in reality. They are full of colour, noise and effort. They look grey only on the maps where clicks and headlines are missing. As long as children in these countries keep walking to school, sitting down at desks or on floors, and writing their first letters and numbers, that shared classroom is alive. Paying attention to their school day, even for a short time, is a way to say that no classroom, and no country, should be invisible.

Selected References

[1] UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report. “Out-of-school rate.” As of twenty twenty-three, an estimated two hundred and seventy-two million children and young people were out of school, with almost three quarters of them in Central and Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/view/outofschool

[2] United Nations Office at Geneva. “251 million children still out of school worldwide, UNESCO reports.” News story, thirty-one October twenty twenty-four, summarising key findings from the twenty twenty-four Global Education Monitoring Report and stressing that the out-of-school population has fallen by only about one per cent in almost a decade. https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/news/2024/10/99797/251-million-children-still-out-school-worldwide-unesco-reports

[3] UNICEF. “Education in emergencies.” Overview of how education programmes support children during wars, disasters and other crises, including safe learning spaces, trained teachers and protection services. https://www.unicef.org/education/emergencies

[4] UNICEF. “UNICEF Digital Learning in Emergencies: Frameworks, Approaches, Initiatives.” Executive brief, November twenty twenty-five, describing how digital tools are used to reach crisis-affected learners and noting that two hundred and thirty-four million children in such contexts urgently need educational support. https://eiehub.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Digital-Learning-In-Emergencies-and-Crisis-Situations_Frameworks.Aproaches.Initiatives_Shorter-Version.pdf

[5] UNICEF. “UNICEF Education Think Piece #10: Education in Emergencies.” Short video that explains why schooling is vital in crisis situations and how education in emergencies works in practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i61lxyUBvs

Appendix

Education in emergencies
This term refers to organised teaching and learning in situations of crisis, such as war, displacement or natural disaster, where schooling aims to protect children, give them routine and support their recovery while also providing basic skills.

Global Education Monitoring Report
This is an annual report produced by UNESCO that tracks progress and challenges in education around the world, including how many children are in school, how much governments spend on education and how fairly opportunities are shared.

Grey countries
In this article, grey countries are places that rarely appear in international news or website traffic maps, so they can look like blank or muted areas on screens, even though daily life there, including school life, is rich and active.

Out-of-school children
These are children who are not attending any formal or non-formal school at the level that matches their age, either because they never started, dropped out or cannot access education due to poverty, conflict, discrimination or other barriers.

UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a United Nations agency that works with governments and partners to support education, culture, science and communication, and that produces major global reports on schooling.

UNICEF
The United Nations Children’s Fund is a United Nations agency that supports children’s rights and well-being worldwide, including through programmes that keep education going in poor, remote and crisis-affected areas.

Small money is the main subject here. The article looks at what people can buy with a small banknote or a few coins in countries that many news outlets almost never talk about.

Key Takeaways

One Question for Many Places

A small banknote can buy very different things in Luanda, Angola (Africa), Harare, Zimbabwe (Africa), Paramaribo, Suriname (South America), Georgetown, Guyana (South America), Belize (North America), Maseru, Lesotho (Africa), Mbabane, Eswatini (Africa), Lilongwe, Malawi (Africa), Bujumbura, Burundi (Africa), Vientiane, Laos (Asia), Thimphu, Bhutan (Asia), São Tomé, São Tomé and Príncipe (Africa), Praia, Cabo Verde (Africa), Dushanbe, Tajikistan (Asia), and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Asia).

Everyday Life Behind the Numbers

In late 2025, global reports speak about poverty lines and billions of people, but daily life is built on small acts: buying bread, taking a minibus, paying a school photocopy, adding phone data, or sharing a drink after a football game.

Choices No One Sees

For many households, one note must cover food, transport, light, or a data top-up. These choices are often invisible, but they shape health, education, and hope day after day.

An Invitation to the Reader

The article ends by inviting readers to look at their own small banknote, think about what it buys today, and compare that feeling with the stories from these less visible countries.

Story & Details

Morning: First Coins, First Decisions

Morning often begins with a simple question: is there enough for breakfast?

In Luanda, Angola (Africa), a city mixed with traffic jams and oil money, a person with little cash can hope for bread, a basic coffee, and maybe a little spread. For some people in the same city, hotel buffets and rich plates are normal. The streets show two worlds side by side.

In Harare, Zimbabwe (Africa), many people remember banknotes that once had long lines of zeros. Prices still move faster than wages. A small note might pay for a short kombi ride, a simple piece of bread, or a tiny phone top-up. The quiet thought is common: this used to be enough for more than it covers now.

In Lilongwe or Blantyre, Malawi (Africa), markets in the morning smell of fruit, vegetables, smoke, and dust. Someone arrives with only a few notes and coins. The person must decide fast: buy more of a cheap food, or less of a food that gives more strength; save some money for the bus; or keep one coin for mobile data. Many lives are built from these fast choices.

Asmara, Eritrea (Africa), has pretty cafés and wide, calm streets. Money, however, is still a daily concern. A small amount pays for a tiny, strong coffee, a piece of bread, or a very modest phone recharge. Sitting at a table to watch people pass by is free. On hard days, that quiet view and a long talk may be the only luxury.

Midday: Food, Work, and Heat

By midday, stomachs are empty, and small money must choose between food and other needs.

In Paramaribo, Suriname (South America), lunch can come from many food traditions. A small note can buy a simple plate on a street corner: rice, some chicken or vegetables, and hot sauce. To visitors from richer countries, the price might look low. For someone with a low wage, every midday is a decision between eating well or just eating enough.

In Georgetown, Guyana (South America), many people live close to the river, in hot, damp weather. A modest banknote can mean a fried snack from a stall, a seat in a minibus, or a short phone call to family abroad. For someone in an office, the same note might just cover a basic lunch. In poorer areas, it may be the line between one meal a day and two.

Belize (North America) is often sold as a tourist dream, with blue water and tours that cost a lot. People who live there see another side. A small banknote may pay for street food, a snack to pass a long shift, or a ride on a local bus. A visitor might spend in one day what a worker earns in a month. That gap can hurt, but tourism can also bring wages and tips that become rent, school fees, and groceries.

In mountain towns in Lesotho (Africa), cold mornings and days are common. A little money buys bread, tea, and sometimes maize or vegetables. Many families depend on relatives who work in South Africa (Africa) and send money home. Each note that arrives is more than cash; it is proof that time away from home has meaning.

Afternoon: School, Play, and Stretching the Day

Afternoon brings school, small jobs, and the last chances to move around before night.

In Eswatini (Africa), a small banknote often turns into a school ride. It pays for a child’s place in a minibus, a snack at break, or photocopies of class notes. No single cost is very high, but for big families, many “small” payments make a heavy total.

In Burundi (Africa), open spaces fill with young people playing football. The ball may be old, and there may be no grass, but the game is still full of joy. When the match is over, someone pulls out a few coins. Together they buy one soft drink. It is poured carefully into several cups. Each player takes a small sip. There is not much, but everyone shares.

In Laos (Asia), many people use motorbikes to move through towns and villages. A modest note might buy a little petrol, a snack from a stall, or a bit of mobile data. Often, it cannot buy all three. If there is school or work, fuel usually comes first. If hunger is strong, food wins. If a message from a distant relative is expected, data may come before both.

Dushanbe in Tajikistan (Asia) is a city where many families depend on money from relatives working abroad. These payments can make up a very large share of the whole economy and often support basic needs such as food, rent, and school uniforms. In some rural areas of Tajikistan (Asia), about one in two people in a village may depend on these outside earnings to meet daily needs. A small amount of cash can mean bread, tea, and vegetables today, and hope that more help arrives next month.

Night: Light, Data, and Quiet

When night comes, the last banknote must decide between warmth, food, and connection.

In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (Asia), winter nights can be bitter. A small amount of money may pay for bread, sugar, or a little phone data. Many people choose the data. With it, they can call relatives in other countries, look for work, study online, or watch something short to forget worry for a moment.

Bhutan (Asia) is often linked in headlines with the idea of national happiness. Daily life, however, still includes food prices, bills, and rent. A small note buys noodles, rice, vegetables, and maybe tea. A nation can speak about happiness, but rice and cooking oil still need cash on the counter.

On the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe (Africa), the air at night is heavy and warm. Near the end of the day, sellers in the market may cut prices before going home. A few coins can buy fish, cassava, plantain, or fruit that is cheaper because it is very ripe. These plates do not match a glossy holiday brochure, but they keep families fed.

In Praia, Cabo Verde (Africa), the evening may come with guitars and strong, gentle songs. A small note might pay for the last bus home or a simple snack after work. For someone in tourism, the note may be a tip from a visitor. For the person who tucks it into a pocket at the end of a hard day, it is part of the rent or the gas bill.

In Pristina, Kosovo (Europe), which also appears only rarely in global debates, small money shapes days in a similar way, even if the scenes look different. A single note can mean a café visit with friends, a bus to class, or a small phone recharge to talk with relatives who live abroad. These choices help show that the line between “grey” and “visible” countries on a map is more about attention than about human experience.

A Tiny Dutch Corner

In the Netherlands (Europe), two short Dutch words show another way to see small money. The phrase “klein geld” means small change, the coins at the bottom of a pocket. The word “spaarpot” is the simple pot or jar where children put extra coins to save for something they want. These everyday terms link the idea of small coins with patience, care, and plans for the future.

Numbers and Feelings in Late 2025

In late 2025, global studies say that hundreds of millions of people still live below a basic money line per day, even after many years of progress. The line itself has moved up in recent updates, so the count has also changed. For many low-income countries, the share of people who are poor is still higher than before the pandemic. In some conflict areas, poverty and hunger are even becoming more concentrated.

These facts explain why a single small banknote feels so important. For someone in Lisbon, Portugal (Europe), it may be the price of a quick coffee. For a street seller in an informal settlement, it may be the difference between walking home and taking a bus, between buying rice or skipping dinner. Behind every number in a report, there is a person deciding what that note must do today.

Conclusions

One Note, Many Worlds

The same face value on a banknote does not mean the same thing everywhere. In some places it is a light snack. In others, it is fuel for a motorbike or the only call home that week. Seeing these small differences helps to understand poverty not just as a line in a chart but as a chain of hard, quiet choices.

Reading Maps in a New Way

Online maps and charts often colour rich countries in strong tones and leave others in grey, as if nothing much were happening there. Daily life in Luanda, Harare, Paramaribo, Georgetown, Belize City in Belize (North America), Maseru, Mbabane, Lilongwe, Bujumbura, Vientiane, Thimphu, São Tomé, Praia, Dushanbe, Bishkek, Pristina, and countless other cities tells another story. People talk, joke, study, raise children, send money home, and plan their futures, even when each day depends on one small banknote after another.

A Simple Question to Carry

The article closes with a simple, gentle question that can travel anywhere. Look at the smallest banknote or handful of coins that feels normal in a pocket or purse. Ask what it can buy today where you live. Ask if that feels fair, too low, or just “better than nothing”. Then imagine someone far away holding a similar note and facing similar doubts. That quiet comparison is a small step toward seeing the big world inside small money.

Selected References

[1] World Bank – Poverty overview. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview

[2] World Bank – Poverty, Inequality and Shared Prosperity data (Poverty and Inequality Platform). https://pip.worldbank.org/

[3] Our World in Data – Poverty. https://ourworldindata.org/poverty

[4] International Organization for Migration – Dependence on family remittances in Central Asia. https://tajikistan.iom.int/news/dependence-family-remittances-central-asia-underlines-need-enhance-migration-pathways-better-worker-protection

[5] World Bank – How Does the World Bank Group Measure Poverty? (YouTube video). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdYl9jtSREA

[6] International Fund for Agricultural Development – Remittances to boost financial stability and help adapt to climate change in rural Tajikistan. https://www.ifad.org/en/w/news/remittances-to-boost-financial-stability-and-help-adapt-to-climate-change-in-rural-tajikistan-ifad-eu-and-finca-partnership

[7] World Bank – Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024. https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-prosperity-and-planet

[8] World Bank – Behind the numbers: How we measure global poverty. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/behind-the-numbers–how-we-measure-global-poverty

Appendix

Data top-up
A data top-up is a small purchase of extra mobile internet, often paid in cash or with a scratch card, that lets a person send messages, make calls, or go online for a short time.

Grey countries
Grey countries are places that appear with little or no colour on digital maps and dashboards because they send less web traffic or data, even though daily life there is as rich and complex as anywhere else.

Informal work
Informal work is paid activity that is not covered by formal contracts or strong legal protection, such as selling goods in the street, cleaning homes, or driving unregistered taxis.

Klein geld
Klein geld is a short Dutch phrase that refers to small change, usually coins, which people keep in pockets, jars, or small bowls at home.

Poverty line
A poverty line is a money level set by experts to show how much income or spending a person needs each day to cover very basic needs like food, shelter, and simple services.

Remittances
Remittances are sums of money that people who work away from home send back to their families, often across borders, to pay for food, housing, school, and other daily costs.

Street food
Street food is simple, ready-to-eat food prepared and sold by vendors in markets, on sidewalks, or from small stalls, usually at lower prices than in restaurants.

Street vendor
A street vendor is a person who sells goods or food in public places such as streets, markets, or bus stations, often with a small stand, cart, or blanket on the ground.

Key Takeaways

• This article looks at people in low-income and lower-middle-income countries who can only go online in short, fragile moments during the day.
• It follows one day, from morning to early dawn, in places such as Chad (Africa), Haiti (North America), Burkina Faso (Africa), Liberia (Africa), Niger (Africa), Sri Lanka (Asia), Moldova (Europe), Laos (Asia), Timor-Leste (Asia) and others.
• It shows how work, money, power cuts, weak signal and the price of mobile data shape those moments of connection.
• It ends with a small experiment: inviting readers to share how they connect, and to send the article to someone whose internet is also fragile.

Story & Details

A day built around one short connection

In many rich countries, the internet feels like air. It is always there. Phones stay online all day. Video calls, streaming and cloud backups happen in the background.

In many other countries, that is not the case.

In December 2025, global figures show that about three out of four people in the world are now online, around six billion human beings. Yet more than two billion people are still offline. Even among those who do connect, many do not enjoy fast, cheap or stable service. The gap between high-income and low-income countries remains wide. In wealthy countries, almost everyone uses the internet. In the poorest countries, less than a third of people do. Slow networks, expensive data and weak digital skills all play a part.

Behind these numbers, there are everyday scenes. They take place in cities such as N’Djamena in Chad (Africa), Port-au-Prince in Haiti (North America), Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso (Africa), Monrovia in Liberia (Africa), Juba in South Sudan (Africa), Colombo in Sri Lanka (Asia), Chişinău in Moldova (Europe), Vientiane in Laos (Asia), Dili in Timor-Leste (Asia), Bangui in the Central African Republic (Africa), Bissau in Guinea-Bissau (Africa), Moroni in Comoros (Africa), Djibouti City in Djibouti (Africa), Banjul in Gambia (Africa) and Malabo in Equatorial Guinea (Africa). They also unfold in countless villages, where one bar of mobile signal is already a small victory.

This is a day in that world.

Morning: work first, signal later

Morning in N’Djamena, Chad (Africa). The light is strong and the heat is already rising. Market sellers think first about filling their tables with food and goods. Data is not the main priority. A person checks a phone quickly if there is a little prepaid balance left: a short look at messages, maybe one social media notification, a missed call. Watching long videos or joining a video meeting is not part of the plan. The choice is clear: pay for transport, water and food, or keep a few megabytes.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti (North America), the start of the day is often noisy and uncertain. Power cuts can arrive without warning. A phone lies on a table with a nearly empty battery. Its owner thinks that the first goal is to find electricity, maybe at home later, maybe at work, maybe at a neighbour’s place. Replies to messages must wait. Life goes on in the street: sweeping doorways, cooking, talking face to face, fixing broken things.

In a rural area of Niger (Africa), the morning begins with work in the fields, walks to collect water, and care for animals. Internet access is not a normal part of this routine. Signal comes in and goes out like the wind. People know exactly where the phone can catch one or two bars: under a certain tree, on a small hill, near the main road. It is possible to spend an entire morning, or an entire day, with no connection at all. Then, in five short minutes, a series of voice notes from relatives abroad might finally download.

In Bangui, in the Central African Republic (Africa), many people still get news from the radio. The radio does not ask for data; it only needs batteries or a bit of power. A mobile phone may sit next to it, waiting for a time when there is enough credit for a small data session. The morning is full of complicated travel to work and careful counting of coins. The internet waits quietly in the background.

Midday: hard choices at the top-up counter

By midday in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (Africa), the sun feels heavy. People who work in the informal economy live with small, daily payments. At the corner shop or kiosk, the person behind the counter sells both food and mobile top-ups. A simple question appears in many minds: is today’s money for rice and vegetables, or for data? Often food wins, and online life must pause for another day.

In Monrovia, Liberia (Africa), midday might mean a trip to a cybercafé. Someone pays for one hour on a shared computer. The connection is not fast, but it is enough to open an email account, send a document, upload a CV for a job, or complete a form for a scholarship or visa. The clock keeps moving even when the page does not load. If the internet drops, there is nothing to do but wait and hope it comes back before the hour is over.

In Bissau, Guinea-Bissau (Africa), not everyone owns a phone. One device can serve a whole family or a group of neighbours. When one person manages to recharge a small data bundle, that person becomes a bridge for others. Friends pass the phone around to listen to voice messages from relatives in other countries. Children watch a short clip. Someone sends a simple “I am fine” message that has been in their head for days.

In Moroni, on the islands of Comoros (Africa), the sea surrounds the city. The distance to other lands is clear and physical. Internet access exists but is often weak and expensive. Around midday, office workers or people in tourism may sit in front of computers with steady connectivity. At the same time, those in poorer districts stay offline, saving coins for a later recharge. For them, the internet is a promise for the evening: “I will connect later, when I can.”

Afternoon: screens switch on after work

In Juba, South Sudan (Africa), afternoon brings a mix of tiredness and stubborn hope. The country has known war and displacement, but daily life keeps moving. When work is done and there is a bit of prepaid balance, phones come out. Messages arrive from people in camps, from friends in the capital, from relatives who left for other countries. Group chats carry both jokes and hard news. A single successful call can change the mood of the day.

In Banjul, Gambia (Africa), staff in hotels watch visitors sit beside pools with strong Wi-Fi. Tourists upload photos, stream films and make video calls without thinking much about cost. In other parts of the city, someone counts coins and buys just enough credit to chat for a while or read the latest headlines. Sometimes the feeling is curiosity, sometimes frustration, sometimes simple acceptance. When the signal finally appears, the rest of the world appears with it.

In Sri Lanka (Asia), many people spend the afternoon in shops, tea plantations, offices and street stalls. At the end of a shift, phones light up with notifications: news about the economy, changes in prices, job offers in other countries, and messages from family members who already left. For many, the internet is a thin line between the present and a possible future elsewhere.

In Moldova (Europe), a small country between larger neighbours, the afternoon might pass in a café with decent Wi-Fi. A student or young worker sits with a laptop and searches for work in the European Union, checks scholarship options, or looks at cheap flights. Stories of people who migrated, and of people who returned, fill the screen. The open question is simple but heavy: stay and build something here, or leave and try somewhere else?

Night: cheap bundles, shared hotspots, tired eyes

In Vientiane, Laos (Asia), many mobile operators offer cheaper night data bundles. For some students and young workers, this is the only time of day when they can afford to be fully online. Lessons are downloaded, videos are watched, long chats take place. Body and mind are tired, but the offer is too important to ignore.

In Dili, Timor-Leste (Asia), people remember a long struggle for independence, but many young people also dream in several languages at once. They write messages and posts mixing Tetum, Portuguese, English and Indonesian. When the Wi-Fi in a home, school or office finally works well in the evening, tasks are sent to teachers, job applications move forward and family photos are shared with relatives who now live far away.

In Djibouti City, Djibouti (Africa), a small country in a strategic location, people sometimes sit outside offices or shops at night just to catch a stronger signal from inside. Only part of a video will load. Not every image will appear. Even so, a short voice note from a son at sea or a daughter in another town can make the walk and the wait worthwhile.

In Malabo, Equatorial Guinea (Africa), large buildings and oil wealth can give an impression of modern comfort, but access to the internet is still unequal. For some residents, an evening with fast home broadband looks very normal: films, games, endless scrolling. For others, each extra megabyte is a cost that must be justified. A neighbour’s hotspot or a single corner of a public square where the signal is stronger becomes a precious resource.

Early dawn: the last message and a small experiment

Near dawn, when most windows are dark, some screens are still lit. In Monrovia, Liberia (Africa), a student may finish a school assignment in a cybercafé that closes late at night. In Colombo, Sri Lanka (Asia), a worker might end a video call with family in another time zone and quickly check the latest exchange rate or job listing before bed. In Chişinău, Moldova (Europe), someone doing remote work for a foreign company closes one last report and hopes that the connection will hold again tomorrow.

Many others, in places like Niger (Africa), Chad (Africa), Haiti (North America), South Sudan (Africa), Comoros (Africa) and beyond, wait for one last chance to send an important message when power returns or when the air cools a little. It might be a simple line saying “I arrived safely” or “I miss you.” After that, the phone is turned off to save battery, and the day is over.

There is also a quiet experiment. The idea is simple. Readers are invited to write a short comment about their own connection: which country and city they are in, how they normally get online (mobile data, home Wi-Fi, work network, cybercafé, shared phone), what frustrates them the most (price, speed, power cuts, censorship, lack of coverage) and what they are most thankful for when the connection does work. Each new place that appears in these comments shows that so-called “grey countries” on web maps are not empty at all.

Readers are also invited to send the article to one other person whose internet is fragile. It could be someone in a village, an old friend in another country, or a relative who often says that the local internet is terrible. A short personal note can go with the link: “I thought of you when I read this. Open it when you have signal and tell me if you see your own situation inside.” If that person one day reads it, even after some delays and disconnections, the map of the world will be a little less abstract.

Along the way, language also plays a role. In Dutch, for example, the phrase “slechte verbinding” means “bad connection”. People in the Netherlands use it when a call cuts out or a video freezes. For many readers of this article, “bad connection” is not only a small annoyance. It is a daily barrier between their lives and the digital services that others now take for granted.

Conclusions

A thin line of light

The global digital divide is often presented as a story of cables, towers and satellites. These things matter a lot, but they are only part of the picture. The rest lives in tiny decisions made every day: to buy a few megabytes or a small bag of rice, to walk to a hill for better signal, to stay awake for a cheaper night bundle, to share a single phone with several people.

As of December 2025, major organisations still warn that being “online” is not the same everywhere. In many low-income countries, mobile data remains too expensive for large parts of the population. Coverage can be weak outside big cities. Public spaces that offer free or cheap access are often crowded or rare. Even when the signal is strong enough, many people do not have the skills or safe conditions they need to use digital tools with confidence.

Yet each fragile connection also opens something real. A job application sent from a cybercafé in Monrovia, a health question delivered by message from a village in Niger, a school assignment uploaded from a night-time bundle in Laos, a family video call from a borrowed hotspot in Djibouti City — all of these moments show that the internet is not only entertainment. It is also a path to opportunity, safety and belonging.

When someone reads this article on a stable fibre line, that person stands at one end of the divide. When someone else reads it on a shared phone after walking to find a signal, that person stands at the other. The distance between them is not only in kilometres. It is in price, speed, skills and risk. But while they read the same words, that distance becomes a little smaller.

If more people share their own stories of connection — where they live, how they get online, what makes them angry and what makes them grateful — the maps that show the world in bright and grey colours will start to look less empty. Behind every small dot of traffic, there is at least one person holding a device in their hand, making the most of a short moment before the signal drops. That short moment is a thin line of light, and it matters.

Selected References

[1] International Telecommunication Union. “Facts and Figures 2025: Global internet users rise but digital divides persist.” Key findings on the number of people online, remaining offline populations and gaps between high-income and low-income countries. https://www.itu.int/itu-d/reports/statistics/

[2] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “Global Internet use continues to rise but disparities remain.” Short overview of 2024 internet use statistics and regional gaps. https://social.desa.un.org/sdn/global-internet-use-continues-to-rise-but-disparities-remain

[3] World Bank. “Digital Development – Overview.” Summary of how digital infrastructure, skills and policies are linked to broader development goals and what is being done to close the digital divide. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/digital/overview

[4] GSMA. “The state of mobile internet connectivity in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Blog article on coverage, usage gaps and barriers such as affordability and skills. https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/connectivity-for-good/mobile-for-development/blog/the-state-of-mobile-internet-connectivity-in-sub-saharan-africa/

[5] World Bank. “What Would a World Be Like Without Digital Solutions? Let’s Close the Digital Divide.” Short video on the development impact of the digital divide and the policies needed to narrow it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUjqJWZezNU

Appendix

Borrowed Wi-Fi: A simple way to describe internet access that does not come from a private, always-on connection, but from shared or fragile sources such as a neighbour’s hotspot, a café network, a school or office signal that reaches the street, or a small prepaid data bundle used with care.

Cybercafé: A public place where customers pay to use computers connected to the internet, often by the hour or by the minute, which can be essential in cities and towns where many people do not own a personal computer or cannot afford a strong home connection.

Digital divide: The gap between people, communities or countries that enjoy fast, affordable, safe and reliable internet access and those that do not, due to factors such as income, geography, gender, language, education, infrastructure and the price of devices and data.

Grey countries: An informal phrase for countries that appear in pale colours or almost invisible on web traffic maps and analytics dashboards, not because nobody lives or connects there, but because there are far fewer visits recorded than in richer parts of the world.

Night data bundle: A special mobile data offer that is cheaper but only works during late-night or very early-morning hours, which can push students, workers and families to stay awake or adjust their routines in order to make use of more affordable internet.

Shared phone: A situation in which one mobile phone is used by several people, such as members of the same family, neighbours or friends, so that they can all listen to voice messages, send important texts or check basic information even if only one person owns the device.

This article looks at what a normal Sunday feels like in countries that rarely appear in the news, and at a small experiment that links those Sundays together.

Key Takeaways

In one glance

• The focus is on simple Sundays in places like Madagascar (Africa), Yemen (Asia), Sierra Leone (Africa), Uzbekistan (Asia), Nicaragua (North America), Ethiopia (Africa), El Salvador (North America), Benin (Africa), Tajikistan (Asia), Sri Lanka (Asia), Burundi (Africa), Lesotho (Africa), Cabo Verde (Africa), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), Togo (Africa) and Mauritania (Africa).
• These Sundays mix work and rest: markets and church, football and laundry, long-distance calls and quiet meals, far from the bright centre of global media attention.
• A small experiment invites readers to share one short note about their own Sunday and to send the article to one person in another country, so that their days briefly meet on the same page.

Story & Details

Quiet mornings

In December 2025, another Sunday arrives in many places that the world rarely sees on screen.

In Madagascar (Africa), a Sunday morning near the coast smells of sea salt and wet sand. Someone walks to the beach, not to swim, but to look at the horizon and talk with friends. In a poorer area of the same country, people wake as early as on any workday. Sunday is also a day to sell vegetables, fruit or fish. The real comfort is not sleeping late. The real comfort is having a little time without hurry, to cook slowly, talk, or let music play through a small speaker.

In Yemen (Asia), this day may begin under the shadow of war and crisis. Still, life moves. Bread warms on a flat pan. Tea boils. A neighbour checks what is in the cupboard and decides whether a visit to a small market is possible. Children run between houses and play with simple things: stones, plastic bottles, old tyres. Adults look at their phones and wait for a message from a son, a sister or a partner who now lives in another country, trying to find safety and work.

In Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone (Africa), a Sunday morning often comes with music. A radio plays in a courtyard. Someone washes clothes in a bucket. For many people, Sunday is a day for church and loud, joyful songs. For others, it is the only slow morning of the week, a time to stretch tired legs and think about what comes next. The sea is close, the sun is strong and money is short, but the city breathes a little more gently.

In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan (Asia), some cafés open later on Sundays. At home, tea steams in glasses on a low table. Grandparents, parents and children share bread, cheese, jam or simple noodles. They talk about work and exams, maybe about leaving Uzbekistan (Asia) one day, or about trying to build a future there. Outside, broad avenues hold old concrete blocks beside shiny new malls, as if two different times live side by side.

When it is eight in the morning in Madagascar (Africa), it is six in the morning in the Netherlands (Europe) on the same December Sunday. The clocks are different, but the feeling of a slow start to the day is easy to recognise in both places.

Heat at midday

By midday in Nicaragua (North America), the heat is already heavy. Many kitchens smell of rice and beans, fried plantain, eggs and warm tortillas. Doors are open. Fans turn. Families sit together and eat. A perfect Sunday might mean a hammock in the shade, music, and maybe a trip to a lake or the ocean, if a bus and a few spare coins are available. Others keep working: driving buses, selling food, or opening a small shop, because a day without income is a risk.

In Ethiopia (Africa), midday on Sunday often belongs to coffee. In many homes, beans are roasted in a pan, ground and slowly brewed. Small cups are filled again and again. While people drink, they talk about prices in the market, about rain and harvests, about family members in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (Africa) or far away in another country. In cities, churches are full and lively. In rural fields, people still work, because crops do not follow human calendars.

In El Salvador (North America), Sundays often taste of thick corn cakes filled with cheese or beans, served hot from a griddle. Families meet at simple stalls or around plastic tables. Laughter mixes with talk about local football and quiet worries about safety and jobs. For many households, Sunday is the only day when everyone is home at once. Some families reach the beach. Others go no further than the nearest park, where children run and adults sit on benches and breathe.

In Benin (Africa), the Sunday picture changes from place to place. In big towns, churches and mosques fill with people, markets stay busy, and motorbikes weave through streets. In small villages, there is more dust, more trees, more sky. People who sell clothes, fruit or phone credit during the week may use Sunday to count money, clean their stall, visit relatives, or simply sit on a chair outside the house and watch the road.

Slow afternoons

In Tajikistan (Asia), many families have relatives working abroad, often in Russia (Europe/Asia). Sunday afternoon is a good time for long voice messages and video calls. Families speak about wages, rent and school fees. They speak about sending money home and about dreams of returning to Tajikistan (Asia) one day or bringing loved ones across borders. Children play outside between apartment blocks or in yards, under huge mountains that frame the town like walls.

In Sri Lanka (Asia), a Sunday afternoon may be a walk on a beach, a visit to a temple, or a quiet time at home with a fan turning slowly above. The country carries scars from war, economic crisis and storms, yet it still has bright jungle, busy stations and calm coves. Someone sells tea to visitors. Someone repairs fishing nets. Someone sits at a table covered in schoolbooks and prepares for an exam that could change a whole life.

In Burundi (Africa), Sunday afternoons are full of colour and sound. Young people play football on fields marked only by stones or sticks. Churches are busy again. Clothes in strong reds, blues and yellows hang from lines and move with the wind. Many adults have spent the week in unstable jobs, with prices rising fast and pay staying low. On Sunday, they still think about money, but they also talk, laugh, and plan together.

In Lesotho (Africa), a highland country inside South Africa (Africa), Sunday afternoons can be cold, even in December. Families gather around stoves or under blankets. Simple soups and bread are shared. Many people in Lesotho (Africa) depend on work in South Africa (Africa), so Sunday may be the only long moment of the week when everyone sits in the same room and no one is in a bus, a factory or a mine.

Night lights and small screens

By night, the Sunday scenes in these countries change again.

In Cabo Verde (Africa), on small Atlantic islands, the sound of the ocean mixes with guitar music and low conversation. Some people think of leaving Cabo Verde (Africa) for Europe. Some have already gone and come back. Others are sure they want to stay close to the sea they know best.

In Papua New Guinea (Oceania), a country with hundreds of languages, Sunday night may mean meetings in wooden community halls, soft religious songs, or simple family dinners by weak electric light or candles. In some areas, mobile signal is slow or absent. In those places, reading an online article at all is rare and special.

In Togo (Africa), small shops and street stalls still glow in some neighbourhoods. People sit on low stools or steps and eat rice, grilled fish or fried dough. They talk about politics, the high price of food, and hopes of study or business abroad. The street may be dim, but voices travel far.

In Mauritania (Africa), some Sundays end under a wide sky full of stars, in desert towns and villages. In the capital, Nouakchott in Mauritania (Africa), Sunday night can mean crowded streets, car horns, and sand in the air. Someone checks a phone and looks at the remaining data, then decides whether to watch a short video, send a few messages, or switch the device off and save credit for the week.

A small experiment with big meaning

These quiet Sundays unfold while many regions face a serious lack of local media. Researchers and journalists warn about “news deserts”: places where people struggle to find fresh, reliable news about their own community, because local newspapers and radio stations have closed or become too weak to report. Studies in Europe and other parts of the world show that large areas now have little or no original local reporting, and that this harms public life and trust.

The Sunday experiment in this article is small beside these big problems, but it speaks to the same concern. It invites readers to do two simple things.

The first is to write a short note about their own Sunday. Just four points are enough: country and city; the day and local time when the note is written; a few lines about what a normal Sunday looks like; and one thing that feels good about Sunday in that place.

The second is to send the article to one person in another country and ask that person to read it and send a similar note in return. That person might be a relative who moved away, an online friend, or someone in the same line of work in a different part of the world.

If a reader in Madagascar (Africa) writes a Sunday note and shares the piece with a cousin in France (Europe), and that cousin sends it to a friend in Kenya (Africa), three very different Sundays start to live side by side in one small chain of stories. None of this replaces careful reporting, but it creates a gentle map of ordinary life that crosses borders and goes beyond statistics.

A Dutch word for Sunday

Because this experiment often links back to the Netherlands (Europe), one small Dutch language detail helps connect the scenes. In Dutch, the word for Sunday is “zondag”. The word for morning is “ochtend”. A person in the Netherlands (Europe) might say “zondagochtend” for “Sunday morning”. On a map, Madagascar (Africa), Yemen (Asia) or Lesotho (Africa) look far from the Netherlands (Europe). In daily language, the sounds for the day are different in every tongue. Still, the feeling of a slow Sunday morning joins them in a quiet way.

For readers who want to see more of everyday struggles and hopes beyond simple numbers, a BBC Africa Eye documentary follows people in Kenya (Africa) as they talk about land, history and justice, showing how big issues are lived in real homes and fields [1].

Conclusions

A soft ending

Sundays in Madagascar (Africa), Yemen (Asia), Sierra Leone (Africa), Uzbekistan (Asia), Nicaragua (North America), Ethiopia (Africa), El Salvador (North America), Benin (Africa), Tajikistan (Asia), Sri Lanka (Asia), Burundi (Africa), Lesotho (Africa), Cabo Verde (Africa), Papua New Guinea (Oceania), Togo (Africa) and Mauritania (Africa) are not the polished weekends of travel ads. They are full of plastic chairs, cheap radios, shared meals, second-hand footballs, long walks to church, crowded markets and quiet worries about money and safety.

These days almost never appear on big news sites. They are easy to ignore from far away. Yet they shape weeks, years and futures for millions of people. The small Sunday experiment asks for very little: a short, honest note and one shared link from country to country. It needs no special tools or big campaigns, only attention and a bit of curiosity.

When more people write and read these simple Sunday stories, the idea that some countries are “nowhere” becomes harder to accept. Each description of a morning market or a late-night bus becomes a small light on a map that once looked empty. No country is truly invisible as long as someone is ready to describe a normal day and someone else is ready to read it.

Selected References

Further reading and viewing

[1] BBC News Africa. “Our Land, Our Life – BBC Africa Eye Documentary.” YouTube. A film about land, memory and justice in Kenya (Africa), from the BBC’s investigative Africa Eye series. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLFL8XlO9o8

[2] Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom. “What Are ‘News Deserts’ in Europe?” European University Institute, 2024. Short explanation of the news desert idea in a European context. Available at: https://cmpf.eui.eu/what-are-news-deserts-in-europe/

[3] Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media. “What Exactly Is a ‘News Desert’?” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Overview of how the concept of news deserts has developed over time. Available at: https://www.cislm.org/what-exactly-is-a-news-desert/

[4] Journalismfund Europe. “A First Comparative Study Indicates the Fragile Situation for Local Media Across the EU.” 2024. Short article on research into local media and news deserts in the European Union. Available at: https://www.journalismfund.eu/news/first-comparative-study-indicates-fragile-situation-local-media-across-eu

Appendix

A–Z key terms

Global South
A broad term for countries in regions such as Africa, Asia, Latin America and parts of Oceania, where many communities have lived through colonisation, economic dependency and other forms of structural disadvantage, and where daily life is often under-reported in global media.

News desert
An area where people have little or no access to fresh, reliable and diverse local news about their own community, often because local newspapers, radio stations or other newsrooms have closed or become too weak to report.

Ordinary Sunday
A regular Sunday without major public events, centred on simple activities such as cooking, worship, rest, play, small jobs and family time, which still reveals a great deal about how people live.

Under-reported country
A country that appears rarely in international news or online attention maps, even though important and interesting things happen there every day in politics, work, family life and culture.

Key Takeaways

What this article is about
This article presents a simple reading experiment. The aim is to read the same story, on the same day, in as many countries as possible, especially in countries that rarely appear in world news.

How the experiment works
Readers share four short facts about their day and their country. Then they send the article to someone in another country so that more people read it at almost the same time.

Why it matters
The story follows ordinary days in places such as Niger (Africa), Laos (Asia), Bolivia (South America), Tanzania (Africa), Moldova (Europe), Nepal (Asia), Zambia (Africa), Honduras (North America), Georgia (Asia), Cambodia (Asia), Uganda (Africa), Paraguay (South America), Mongolia (Asia), Rwanda (Africa), Kyrgyzstan (Asia), and Malawi (Africa). It shows that no country is just a grey dot on a map.

Story & Details

Morning in many places

In Niamey in Niger (Africa), the day starts while it is still dark. Heat arrives early. Many families think first about water, not about phones. Some people in the city walk with a plastic container to a public tap. Others in villages go to a well. Work, school, and the market all come later. Breakfast is often strong tea and bread. The real luxury is a quiet moment to sit and drink it.

In Vientiane in Laos (Asia), a worker wakes up to the soft sound of motorbikes far away and the smell of rice cooking. There may be a job in a small office, a hotel, or a street food stall. Before leaving home, this person checks messages from family in the countryside and watches a short video. Then comes a daily choice: ride a personal motorbike or climb into a small three-wheeled taxi.

In El Alto or La Paz in Bolivia (South America), cold air waits outside the door in the early hours. A student puts on several layers of clothes and checks a school bag. To reach a university or a job, there may be one, two, or three different minibuses to take. Breakfast can be a hot sweet corn drink and a small pastry from a street stand. The driver of the first bus has already worked for an hour and is thinking about money for fuel, food, and maybe a little saving.

In Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (Africa), the sun soon becomes very strong. Many people travel by shared minibus. These busy vehicles stop again and again to pick up and drop off passengers. A person from the outer districts walks to the roadside and waits in the heat. Inside the bus, some people listen to music on their phones. Others look out of the window. The ocean is close, but daily life often leaves no time to enjoy it.

Midday work and small worries

In a village in Moldova (Europe), midday can arrive after many hours of physical work. People feed animals, water gardens, or travel to a nearby town for small jobs. At home, someone prepares soup and a soft maize dish. At the table, the talk often turns to relatives living and working in countries like Italy, Germany, or Russia who send money home. Young people think about a hard question: stay in the village or leave as well.

In the hills of Nepal (Asia), a child walks along a rough dirt path to reach school. During the rainy season there is mud. In colder months there is wind and fog. The classroom may be simple, but it is full of voices, laughter, and dreams. In Kathmandu, the capital, an office worker or shop assistant eats a fast lunch and then returns to a small desk in a travel agency or a service company. The gap between mountain villages and the busy city is large, even inside one country.

In Lusaka in Zambia (Africa), offices, banks, shops, government buildings, and non-governmental organisations are active. At lunchtime, many people eat a plate of thick maize porridge with vegetables and sometimes a little meat. In nearby markets, sellers argue about prices, joke with one another, and feel stress when customers are few. Radios often play football commentary. The sport feels like a second language that almost everyone understands.

In Tegucigalpa or San Pedro Sula in Honduras (North America), the sun is strong in the middle of the day. Buses move slowly through traffic. Passengers look out of the windows and think about safety, rent, food prices, and the next bills. Someone eats a warm tortilla with beans and cheese at a small stall. Someone else writes quick messages to a relative who now lives in the United States or Spain and sends back photos and voice notes.

Afternoon traffic and quiet dreams

In Tbilisi in Georgia (Asia), old stone buildings stand next to new glass offices. A person leaves a shared workspace with a laptop. Another closes a small family shop. On the metro and buses, many eyes look at phone screens. People watch short comedy clips, check news headlines, or look for work abroad. The city holds both history and new change, and many minds are split between staying and leaving.

In Cambodia (Asia), large clothing factories stand near busy roads. When a shift ends, long lines of workers leave the gates. Many are tired after long hours of standing. They climb onto motorbikes, into small taxis, or head for food stalls by the roadside. In Siem Reap in Cambodia (Asia), which hosts visitors to famous nearby temples, a driver or guide greets tourists from many different countries. Sometimes there is a private question: do those visitors know where Cambodia is on their own map at home?

In Kampala in Uganda (Africa), the afternoon almost always brings traffic jams. Cars, minibuses, and many motorcycle taxis move close together. These bikes carry people and goods quickly through gaps in the traffic. A person going home thinks about rent, school fees, and the cost of fuel. Yet loud music plays from small speakers. Passengers and drivers share jokes and brief stories as they wait at junctions. Even when money is tight, hope stays in these small moments.

In Asunción in Paraguay (South America), many people end the workday together. Some sit outside with family or friends and share a cold herbal drink. Conversation moves from football to politics, from job plans to trips that may never happen but still feel good to imagine. In a poor district, someone checks if there is enough cash for gas, electricity, and food until the end of the month. In a middle-income area, another person wonders if there will be enough money for university fees or a second-hand car. The numbers are not the same, but the main worry is similar: is this constant effort building a better life, or only allowing basic survival?

Night lights and phone screens

In Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia (Asia), winter nights can be cold even indoors. Outside the city, on wide open land, a family in a round tent home cares for animals and looks up at a sky full of stars. In the city, many people turn on a laptop or phone after work. Some log in to online classes. Others work for international clients. Many simply watch videos to relax and forget the stress of the day.

In Kigali in Rwanda (Africa), more and more street lights appear every year. Motorbikes move between houses, shops, and evening schools. People study at night to improve their chances in the job market. Some run small businesses from home. The country still carries deep pain from its past, but cities are being built with a strong wish for safety, order, and future growth.

In Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan (Asia), distant mountains form a dark line against the night sky. Many phones light up with photos and voice messages from relatives working abroad, often in Russia. Young people sit at shared tables and learn programming, foreign languages, or design skills. They hope these skills will open doors to remote jobs that pay better than many local positions.

In a village in Malawi (Africa), night falls fast when there is little street lighting. Power cuts are common in some regions, so many homes rely on candles, torches, or simple solar lamps. People gather and tell stories. They share jokes, remember those who have died, and talk quietly about the next harvest, school fees, and family plans. Later in the evening, someone unlocks a shared phone, and several people lean over the small glowing screen.

Four short lines that link countries

The reading experiment asks each person to answer four short questions in a comment:

Country and city.
Time of day: morning, afternoon, or night.
What happened today.
One thing that is liked about the country.

The language does not need to be perfect. Simple sentences are fine. The goal is to fill the page with real days from many different places. Even one answer from a country that rarely appears in world news turns a cold number in a statistics chart into a human voice.

After writing this short message, the reader sends the article to someone in another country. It can be a relative who moved far away, a friend met on a trip, someone met online, or a teammate from an online game. The text can be short: “This is an article about daily life in countries that do not often appear in the news. It is a small experiment. Please read it now and tell me where you are.”

If that person opens the link, there are already two countries linked by the same words. If both pass the article to others, the number of connected places slowly grows.

Media that also looks at quiet corners

Some media projects already focus on stories from places that large newsrooms often ignore. One example is Global Voices, a community of writers, translators, and activists who publish local stories from many countries and languages and share them with a world audience. Another example is a British documentary series called “Unreported World”, which follows reporters as they cover people and problems in underreported places, including markets for second-hand clothes in Ghana (Africa).

Short films and articles like these help readers and viewers see how daily life in less-covered countries connects to wider global systems. A person buying a cheap new shirt in a rich country can, for example, learn how some of these garments later become waste that arrives in big bales at markets and landfills in West Africa.

A very small Dutch lesson

The Dutch language has a phrase, “samen lezen”. It means “reading together”. This phrase fits the experiment very well. People in Niger (Africa), Laos (Asia), Bolivia (South America), Tanzania (Africa), Moldova (Europe), Nepal (Asia), Zambia (Africa), Honduras (North America), Georgia (Asia), Cambodia (Asia), Uganda (Africa), Paraguay (South America), Mongolia (Asia), Rwanda (Africa), Kyrgyzstan (Asia), Malawi (Africa), and in many other countries may never meet. Yet when they look at the same story on their screens, they are, for a short time, reading together.

Conclusions

A small idea with human weight

The idea behind this reading experiment is very small. It does not promise to fix global injustice. It does not try to replace professional reporting. Instead, it gives value to simple moments: a bus ride to work, a shared drink at sunset, a walk to school, a late-night study session, a short rest after a long factory shift.

No country is only a dot

When readers in different countries see that other people are reading the same article on the same day, they may feel a little less alone. Countries that rarely appear in international headlines become more than distant names. They become places where real people wake up early, work hard, worry, laugh, love, and dream. On any map, no dot is truly grey when it holds so many colours of daily life.

Selected References

[1] “Dala dala.” Wikipedia. A description of shared minibuses used for public transport in Tanzania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dala_dala

[2] “Boda boda.” Wikipedia. An article on bicycle and motorcycle taxis widely used in East Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boda_boda

[3] “Practices and traditional knowledge of Terere in the culture of Poha Ñana, Guarani ancestral drink in Paraguay.” UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage listing. https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/practices-and-traditional-knowledge-of-terere-in-the-culture-of-poha-nana-guarani-ancestral-drink-in-paraguay-01603

[4] “About Global Voices.” Global Voices. An overview of a community project that shares underreported stories from around the world. https://globalvoices.org/about/

[5] “Fast fashion: The dumping ground for unwanted clothes.” BBC News video on YouTube, about clothing waste in Ghana. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHnDqelUh-4

Appendix

Boda boda
Boda boda is the common name for bicycle and motorcycle taxis in several countries in East Africa. These vehicles weave through city traffic and provide fast, flexible, and low-cost transport for people and goods.

Dala dala
Dala dala is a term for shared minibuses in Tanzania. These buses follow set routes in and between cities and towns, and they are one of the main ways many people travel to work, school, and markets.

Fast fashion
Fast fashion is a way of making and selling clothes very quickly and cheaply to follow changing trends. This system often leads to high levels of waste, and large amounts of used clothing can end up in landfills or open dumps in countries such as Ghana (Africa).

Samen lezen
Samen lezen is a Dutch phrase that means “reading together”. It describes the shared act of several people, often in different places, looking at the same text at almost the same time.

Terere
Terere is a cold herbal drink made with yerba mate and other plants. It is closely linked to social life in Paraguay (South America) and is recognised by UNESCO as part of the world’s intangible cultural heritage.

Underreported story
An underreported story is an event or situation that affects people’s lives but receives little attention in mainstream national or international news. Special media projects work to bring such stories to wider audiences.