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Laura Impallomeni was struck by lightning on holiday in Kerala in 2005. In the days that followed she was seized by an overwhelming hunger to play a musical instrument. Now a professional trombonist with her own quintet, she reflects on the part the lightning strike may have played in the achievement of her ambitions.

Whenever Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza tried to write about the murder of her sister Liliana, who was murdered aged 20 in 1990, the words failed her. Cristina is a successful novelist and poet, but she describes her grief for Liliana as a kind of forced silencing. No one has ever been convicted of Liliana's murder. In 2020, emboldened by the rise of feminist movements in Latin America, Cristina began to look for answers and opened up the untouched boxes of her sister’s possessions. The papers she found helped her find new ways of talking about what had happened.

We first spoke to Gazan swimming coach Amjed Tantesh a year ago about his passion for the water and ambition to train the next generation of Gazan Olympic hopefuls. In this programme, using voicenotes sent by Amjed from a refugee camp in Rafah, we hear how drastically Amjed's life has changed since the most recent war began and why he considers it ‘a no-escape duty’ for him to restart his swimming initiative to try to help Gaza’s children recover from all they've lived through. This is an update to Amjed’s story, which we first covered in March 2023.

And from Fukuoka prefecture in Japan, cat photographer Kenichi Morinaga (@morikencatphoto) sends us the first in a new series of listeners' stories celebrating the streets and neighbourhoods we walk every day. We want to hear from you, too! Send us a voicenote to #MyNeighbourhoodAndMe telling us who you are, where you live and taking us on a short tour of your neighbourhood. You can email us at outlook@bbc.com, or WhatsApp us at +44 330 678 2707.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Laura Thomas

(Photo: Cassette tape. Credit: Getty Images)