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.  The precious few minutes he bought us allowed me to shoot footage of our central character, Mohamed Talaat, dribbling a ball on the empty field – no other members of the press were allowed out of the stands that night.  While shooting around Cairo, Mohamed worked his magic to find us an iron-smelter in the narrow alleys of Bab el-Khalk that would actually let us film – after countless others had told us to beat it.  And although I can speak enough Arabic to get around, Mohamed’s native language skills were invaluable when interviewing locals in neighborhoods like Sayeda Aisha.

Too often, the fixers are overlooked in the final credits, but we couldn’t tell stories like this one without people like Mohamed.