I am a relatively young subscriber I think, at 30. My first exposure to the Guardian was from a small town called Gitarama in Rwanda while I was on a VSO placement five years ago. I was volunteering with the Young Women’s Christian Association and we had such limited exposure to the media that the Guardian was like a beacon of world news. Those issues would circulate to about eight different households!
I continued my subscription when I moved to Guyana, met my husband and then we moved to my hometown of Melbourne, Australia.
We are currently living in Port Vila, Vanuatu, and still receive an issue every week. Our landlord here is the ex-editor of The Independent paper of Vanuatu and he takes the papers after we’re done and completes the crosswords (after photocopying them for friends). The issues are then sent to the island of Tanna to our other colleagues and have a productive demise on the far reaches of the island, where our friend is collecting them to make papier-mache volcanoes to aid in her lessons on climate change and environmental hazards.
Even though I’m Gen Y and love the online world, I still appreciate the paper format, and the size of the Guardian means I’m able to catch up on news from my hammock.
My favourite section would have to be Comment & Debate, because they add some meat to the bare bones of world events. As a stay-at-home mum, these articles now serve as my watercooler banter. I always read the column that will change my life first. I wonder how Oliver Burkeman comes up with his ideas ...
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