03 septembre 2006
Adapt to your hostile environment
I recently participated to the first “hostile environment training” organized in Africa. This is the kind of training where journalists are sent by their news organizations before they go on dangerous assignments like Iraq for example. For Western journalists it is often a mandatory step, because insurance companies will not protect you unless you’ve undergone such training. But for local journalists here or for freelancers like me, your own experience is your training. And you have no insurance whatsoever.
This training had been sponsored by UNESCO, and organized in Nairobi with the help of Camerapix, the production company with which I sometimes work. Most of the journalists who were attending the training were local journalists from DRC, Sierra Leone, Chad and others. Besides me and the Camerapix team (Andrew, Mark and Farah), there was only one “international” journalist. By “international” I mean a journalist who travels to cover stories outside of his or her own country. It was a short white South-African woman who looked about 45 (although I learnt later she was only 39) and who would drink about 10 bottles of water everyday, subsequently making about 20 trips to the toilets.
A woman from an international organization for the protection of journalists was there - a tall and skinny blond woman in kaki pants. She welcomed each one of us with an iron-strong handshake that meant “I-might-be-a-tall-and-skinny-blonde-but-I’m-tough-and-I’ve-done-things-in-the-past-that-made-me-this-way-but-trust-me-you-don’t-want-to-know”.
The trainer was Roy, an ex-British army officer who had fought in Iraq before shifting careers. Now he takes tv crews to Iraq. Sometimes he also serves as bodyguard for Saudi millionaires in London.
During 2 days Roy taught us how to ensure that your hotel room is safe, how to bandage different kinds of wounds, how to avoid being kidnapped and how to behave if you are, how to avoid mines and how to recognize different types of weapons.
Most of it was common sense and not adapted to Africa. The pictures illustrating the “mob and crowds” chapter looked like they had been taken in London. The police were in full body armor and organized in a nice straight line. We were told to avoid this type of situations but if we couldn’t, to hide behind the police. “But what if there is no police?” I said. “Riots are not so organized here, they just happen. Sometimes you’re even the CAUSE of the riot. In some places, like Somalia, there’s just no police. And when there is police, they might not be on your side”. “Well then the only thing I could advise you is to stay away from a place if there’s a potential risk. Trust your gut feeling”.
It wasn’t Roy’s fault. He was a good trainer, but he didn’t now anything about Africa. He didn’t even know Kenya was a tropical region and that yes, there was malaria here.
The part that I found the most interesting was the medical training. If was too quick to be really efficient but now I know what “clearing the airways” or “capillary refill test” mean. I’m also supposed to know how to do it.
Came the point where Roy tackled what to do in case of fainting. “Has anybody here ever fainted?” he asked. Andrew, Mark and Farah started giggling like three idiots. Of course, I knew this was coming. I raised my hand “Yeah, me, I fainted” (see the post” Journey to Wajir”). “Oh, and you know why?” “Yes, it was hot and I hadn’t drunk enough water.” “That’s a typical reason”, said Roy to the rest of the class. “And did you see black spots before you fainted?” “No actually I saw everything in white”. “Yes, white or black spots, you loose sensitivity to colors when you’re about to faint”.
Roy had been trained during his army days and his medical knowledge had served him well, especially when he had to deliver his own daughter (!!).
The South-African woman was whining every time he would show a photo of a wound on his power point presentation, complaining that she couldn’t bear the sight of blood.
Actually, she was whining about all the time. We were all encouraged to share stories and anecdotes and she had many to tell. One of the highlights was the story about the “pervert-child-soldiers” in Sierra Leone who would try to touch her at roadblocks because they were drunk and she was a woman with blond hair. “Well if it bothers you so much, why don’t you go back to your natural color?” I thought. No way she was a real blonde.
She was so painfully annoying that at some point even Roy couldn’t repress an overwhelming urge to look at his watch. She just would go on and on and on about how “awfull” and “terrible” her experiences had been. I really wondered why she was doing this job, and then it occurred to me that she probably liked having people pitying her, and at the same time admire the fact that she had put herself in dangerous situations.
She was not the only one with stories to tell. A few others seemed like they needed to speak. Some sort of therapy? Or maybe they saw in the interest in other people’s eyes a justification for the way of life they had chosen - because they themselves didn’t remember why they had. I hope I’ll never be like that… I don’t think I will.
