"If you asked me a few months ago what Mozambique brought to mind, I would have told you the same as  many fellow South Africans -- pleasant memories of drinking rum and raspberry soda while lying on a picturesque beach during a summer holiday," writes Maryke Vermaak, a video journalist based in Johannesburg.

"But that was before March, when I flew into the country to cover the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, one of the deadliest storms on record to hit the southern hemosphere that devastated parts of Mozambique and Zimbabwe, killing nearly 1,000 people and impacting more than two million, the vast majority of them in Mozambique."

"The tears came without warning, as I watched them link arms, forming a protective human fence around their Muslim neighbors who were holding evening prayers in the park, just meters from where the killing took place," writes Jerome Taylor, bureau chief for Hong Kong and Taiwan who was part of a team to cover the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque attacks.

"That’s how it usually happens -- when you least expect it. As you cover the aftermath of a tragedy, you glimpse something that reminds you that goodness exists even in the darkest of places. And you crack."