I won’t get into the backstory of working this piece, because my co-reporter Theodore May has already done so (very well, I might add) on the GlobalPost blog.

Instead, let me give a shout-out to Mohamed Effat, our amazing fixer and translator on the story.  Mohamed worked around the clock to make sure that Theo and I got the access we needed to tell this story.  His connections at the FIFA U-20 World Cup worked wonders to get us onto the field at Cairo Stadium after a warmup game between Egypt and Venezuela.   Read the rest of this entry »

The soundbites above are from interviews I shot for Al-Jazeera English.  I shot them in Rafah, Egypt a few days before Barack Obama was sworn in as president.  Here’s what AJE’s YouTube site description read: “People at the Rafah border tell Al Jazeera what their hopes and expectations for US President Barack Obama are.”

What it didn’t say is that these were shot during Israel’s offensive in Gaza, and all the interviews were conducted inside Egypt’s border terminal directly alongside Hamas-controlled Rafah in the Gaza Strip.  Some of the noise in the background includes Israeli aerial drones overhead, Gazan trucks filling with humanitarian supplies, and Egyptian ambulances carrying wounded Palestinians to hospitals.  In the first frame, you are actually looking past the Egyptian border into Gaza – an area that was hit by several rounds of artillery fire not long after that interview.

Two days ago, I had a 30-hour working day for the US election, including an all-nighter at the US Embassy sponsored election event at the Hard Rock Cafe.  Diplomats, prominent Egyptians, and the international media attended all-you-can-eat wings party, which also featured an expat rock band and an open-bar with bottles of imported Icehouse.

Almost every single person at the Hard Rock (even members of Egyptian media) were wearing Obama/Biden buttons that had been handed out at the front door.   All night long, Egyptian businessmen gave interviews to the media about how an Obama administration would bring the much-needed change to the Middle East.  In a mock vote held for Egyptians before the actual election, the attendees overwhelmingly voted for Obama (204 to 23 for McCain).  The few remaining stragglers at 6 in the morning cheered and clapped as Virginia and then the nation was called for Barack Obama.

In the video above, I produced the Egypt segment for Current TV in a package called “We Vote, World Reacts.”

There’s no doubt that the nature of the foreign news coverage is rapidly changing.  Facing growing competition from the internet, newspapers and television stations are cutting costs by reducing their foreign bureaus and news desks.  Nowadays, news companies are relying more on stringers, wire services, and “parachute journalists”.  Out of all the American newspapers, only four – the Washington Post, New York Times, LA Times, and Wall Street Journal – still have at least one overseas bureau.  

It’s actually quite sad.  But it is good news if you’re a freelance journalist abroad.  

Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, I was at a small cafe on the Corniche smoking a lemon-flavored shisha with a couple of friends.  We talked while watching the sun set over the Nile River for over an hour.  Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, one of the girls I was with – who I’ve known for about 5 months – asked me, “So… what is it exactly that you do again?”

She couldn’t quite comprehend how some days I’m holed up in a dark room, editing for 20-plus hours, when other days, I take long weekends off (in the middle of the week) to lie on the Red Sea.  Or how I could just up and goto Lebanon for 10 days.  

Here’s another good story. Read the rest of this entry »

I came across a neat blog a few weeks ago describing the experiences of a group of American and Arab journalism graduates that held an exchange in Egypt and Qatar.  One of the Americans, Carla Babb, paints a pretty accurate picture of what video journalism is like in Egypt.  Babb encountered a number of obstacles while shooting a story on tourism at the Pyramids – not exactly a ’sensitive’ subject.  Although she had all the permissions necessary to shoot, Babb was stopped by the police several times, at one point being given three options:

I could either erase the interview, give them my camera, or go to jail. Obviously, none of those choices were acceptable, but arguing did nothing. I took a deep breath, rewound my tape for about thirty seconds in front of the policeman, and recorded two minutes of black. 

Read the full entry here.

NOTE: This is a short article I wrote for an English-language magazine in Egypt.

“No, no. I won’t sell,” the elderly woman blasts into her cell phone.

At nearly eighty years old, Wegman al-Barbary still moves with grace and elegance. And she has the spirit and acumen of the most competitive merchants in Cairo.

Except that Barbary doesn’t breed horses for money.

“You could offer me one million Euros, and I still wouldn’t sell,” she announces into the mobile before hanging up.

Wegman al-Barbary – Danny, as her friends call her – is a champion horse rider, an acclaimed equestrian tournament judge, and one of the preeminent horse breeders in Egypt. Barbary’s Arabian horses are renowned for having one of the strongest bloodlines in the world.

Read the rest of this entry »

I used to like Kevin Sites. Really, I did. But that was before I read this page on his website.

For those that don’t know him, Kevin Sites is a video journalist-cum-lucky bastard who scored a gig with Yahoo News (yes, Yahoo) after a few years of freelancing in the Middle East for people like CNN. At Yahoo, Sites spent a year reporting from every war-zone in the world. In fairness, he should be praised for being one of the pioneers of solo-journalism, reporting from abroad with minimal crew and equipment.

But that was then, and this is now. These days, he’s got access to HD cameras, sat-phones, and God knows what else. And since I’m hobbling around on broken cameras and bags that have been stitched up 4-times over, I was just bitter enough to share a similar post here. This should be pretty inspirational.

And so, here’s a brief look at some of the key tools used in my “backpack journalism” unit – only the latest in digital recording and news-gathering equipment. Read the rest of this entry »

Khat is one of the biggest drugs on the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. Fresh khat, when chewed for hours at a time, gives the user a strong buzz that is supposed to induce conversation. In Yemen, something like 80% of the men and half of the women claim to have used the drug at least once – almost 50% of men surveyed in Yemen use the drug every day.

Of course, sitting around chewing an amphetamine every day will have health consequences to users. But the most serious problem with the drug in Yemen is the toll that khat farming is taking on the environment. The biggest issue is that farmers are devoting more and more land to khat – a very water intensive crop – in lieu of sorghum, wheat, or other edible crops. As a result, Yemen is importing most of its food.

This becomes a real concern with food prices rising across the world.

One of my friends was just in Yemen for a holiday, and he took my camera to shoot footage of the largest khat market in Sana’a. Together, we produced the video above for Current TV on the dangers of khat farming with soaring food prices around the Middle East.

45% of the population earns less than $2 a day making Yemen one of the poorest countries in the world. I don’t really blame people for using khat, especially when you have little else in life. I’d probably get high all day too.

But if something doesn’t change soon, this endless cycle of choosing drugs over food will spiral out of control.

Remember the good old days when a nickel could buy you and your gal a couple of root beer floats at Pop Glenn’s Soda Shop? My grandparents and even parents used to tell me stories about the days when 5 pennies could get you almost anything. Candy, food, even a one-way trip to Havava on the Pan Am Clipper out of Key West.

How about these days? What can you buy for a nickel anymore? Half a tootsie-roll? A used piece of gum? Maybe a bag of sand. A very small bag.

I’ll tell you what you can buy. A freelance writer in Egypt who knows English. That’s right – apparently, you can buy my services. Read the rest of this entry »