Follow your heart to discover the world

The India trip solidified Yuan's desire to travel and write, and last summer she began her second adventure, this time across Kenya. For over three months she explored the country and worked as a volunteer in the Kibera slums. Now she plans to publish a book on the experience called Kenya, Tamu Sana (which means 'Kenya is very sweet' in Swahili)

"I didn't feel sweet in Kenya at first, but after experiencing all the sourness and bitterness and then looking back, I just find everything sweet," she says.

Her favorite part of the country was the less developed northern areas where tribal culture remains strong. With few roads or tourists in the region, her means of travel was hitching a ride with missionaries.

"To me this culture was from another planet," she says. "We saw local warriors decorated with chicken feathers and sleeping in straw huts. The region is a desert and every family raises their own animals."

Working for a month as a volunteer in the Kibera area of Nairobi, the world's second largest slum, she encountered quite a different situation. Her job there was to help with documentary interviews as part of a project set up by US film director Nathan Collett, which aimed to cultivate potential actors, following the shooting of his movie Kibera Kid.

The reaction of local people to the work was not as Yuan had imagined.

"They don't count on anyone to change their lives," she says. "I think Kenyan people have spirit and strive hard without any let up, which wasn't what I expected."