A reporter’s life

Photo by David Gilkey in Northern Nigeria

I didn’t expect to become a reporter. When I was young, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. My first goal was to get the hell out of Maine. Get away from our cow farm. See the world. I sort of stumbled into journalism. Got sucked in. Addicted. Then I spent most of my life telling stories. Other people’s stories. Often far away from Maine, far away from home.

At NPR I got labeled as a “shit-magnet”. This was due to regularly getting sent to cover shitty situations and even when I wasn’t supposed to be covering shitty situations, shit seemed to find me. I’m in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iran for some reasons decides to bomb the U.S. consulate in Erbil. I land in Kisangani and then the riots erupt. For whatever reason, I often found myself in it deep.

For more than two decades I covered wars, famine, politics– disasters of all kinds. I had a suitcase that I never fully unpacked. After a trip, I’d pull out the dirty laundry, stick in some clean. In the bottom was a bullet proof vest, several tourniquets, bandages, antibiotics, malaria pills and a bottle of ThyroShield to take in case of nuclear attack. The suitcase didn’t raise nearly as many red flags at airports as you’d think.

Customs officials were usually more interested in the wads of U.S. cash in my carry-on.

I found myself popping between worlds. Mogadishu, above. Hong Kong, below.

Here’s a street scene in Port au Prince, Haiti, a fascinating and frustrating place that always seems to draw me back.