I volunteered to be on call for the weekend (total no-brainer), and ended up getting a call Friday evening that there was a heart coming in. They asked me to shoot some stills for the Akron Beacon Journal, in addition to shooting video for the Clinic.

It’s an incredible story that’s still unfolding, and I’m hugely grateful to Porter and his family for trusting me and letting us in on a very difficult part of their life.

Full story on Ohio.com

Akron Beacon Journal front page for Jan. 7, 2012.

Communication

Your ability to communicate with editors, clients, friends and family depends greatly on where you’re actually going. Many places in the world have good cell reception. Some places even have Internet access.

For my trip to Sierra Leone, I rented a cell phone from Cellular Abroad. The phone worked OK most times, but it was expensive, and didn’t work when I really needed it. Luckily, my driver’s local phone worked just fine.

Since then, I’ve purchased a $50 unlocked GSM phone on eBay, and international prepaid SIM card from OneSimCard. Now, when I travel, I’ve got communication the minute I land, which is very important when your fixer is nowhere to be found at the airport. When I get situated, I’ll buy a local SIM card, and use that to make all my calls. Local cell service is almost always cheaper and more reliable, and GSM is the de facto world standard.

Depending on where you are, you may be able to purchase a cellular USB device to connect to the Web, but don’t count on it. If you’re using a Windows machine, keep it isolated from local computers. Never use a USB drive to transfer files back and forth. While there are plenty of computers in the developing world, many of them are packed to the brim with malicious software. The last thing you need is for your computer to go down in the field.

Before you leave, it’s a good idea to put together a list of emergency contacts to leave with friends, family, or whoever else you may rely on back home. You should have one person designated as your main contact in case of trouble, someone who can coordinate anything you may need. A spouse or immediate relative is the best choice: it’ll be easier for them to get information from governmental and medical organizations. You may also want to consider giving your main contact power of attorney, so they can access your bank accounts in an emergency.

The emergency contact list should be comprehensive, include numbers for your client or employer, other family members, embassies or consulates both the country you’re in, the State Department and the local American presence. You’ll also want to include more mundane things, like the maintenance number for your apartment, your veterinarian or church.

This last part didn’t really occur to me until I watched Jon Stewart’s interview Roxana Saberi last week.

Prearrange “help” signals. If something happens, you need a way to say “I’m in trouble” without saying “I’m in trouble.”

Improvising and hoping the person on the other end can read between the lines is unreliable at best.

It has to be something simple and innocuous, like asking how your non-existent dog or uncle is doing.  Discuss the signal, and what to do when it happens, ahead of time. Hopefully it’s something you’ll never use.

Africa is an interesting place. The man pictured here is Samuel Vamboi, my driver while I was in Sierra Leone. Without Samuel, I really don’t know what I would’ve done.

Lungi International Airport, while ostensibly in Freetown, is on an island roughly nine miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. Travelers can get there by ferry, helicopter or hovercraft (bizarrely). On the day I was supposed to depart, we decided to take the ferry. Flights in and out of Lungi from London Heathrow generally arrive in the evening (7 p.m. or so), and depart again before midnight.

Samuel picked me up around 3 or 4 in the afternoon to begin the sojourn to the airport. Traffic in Freetown is unbelievable–I probably spent as much time sitting in traffic as I did working–but even so, three hours should be enough time to get from the guest house to the ferry terminal, and on to the airport.

We arrived at the ferry shortly after 6 p.m., just in time to see the ferry departing. Normally, a 6 p.m. ferry departing at 6 p.m. wouldn’t be astonishing, but this is Africa. Nothing runs on time. That should’ve been my first clue.

No matter, everyone assured me the 9 p.m. ferry would get me to the airport with time to spare.

We waited around the ferry terminal, killing time, and I tried not to worry about missing my flight.

Naturally, the 9 p.m. ferry did NOT leave on time. Nor did it take 30 minutes to cross, as I was told. No, because the tide was coming in, the ferry took just over an hour. We docked at the ferry terminal–roughly 15 miles from the airport–just after 10. Toward the end of the ferry ride, I was getting increasingly anxious. I had a bad feeling.

Since we were one of the first vehicles onto the ferry, we were at the front. That meant we’d be one of the last vehicles off.

Amazingly, Samuel was able to maneuver our full-size Toyota Hilux pickup truck in front of half the other cars on the ferry. Backwards.

Once we cleared the ferry terminal, it was a race to the airport. We were bombing these third-world, one-and-a-half lane roads at 100 kph or more, with all manner of carts, cars and livestock surrounding us. If you’ve never heard a 2.5 L diesel shrieking at red line … it’s quite a sound.

We arrived at the airport and rushed in. The gormless man at the check-in counter simply said we were too late, that I couldn’t board the plane. There was no changing his mind.

I was crushed.

After anticipating the trip home, and SEEING the plane I was supposed to take, I simply broke down.

The people at the airport were no help, and I realized not only did I miss my flight, I had no idea when I would be able to leave, or if I had enough money on my American Express to pay the fees I’d undoubtedly rack up for changing my flight plans AFTER my flight left.

I called home, and explained (poorly), that I wasn’t on the plane, and didn’t know what I was going to do. I said I would call back when I had more information, but my rented cell phone didn’t have reception later, so I couldn’t call back until roughly 18 hours later. As far as everyone back home was concerned, I was off the grid. Ironically, British Airways told my mother I was on the plane, so they worried less than they probably should’ve.

After hanging up, I tried to compose myself, and turned to find Samuel.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I will stay with you.”

I don’t have words to describe what that felt like. It settled me enough to try to figure out my next move. I didn’t even have a phone number for British Airways.

This is from an afternoon spent with the Kissy nutrition unit. They spent the better part of two days preparing Benemix, which has all sorts of stuff in it. The final product is a powdery supplement for infants, high in protein and calcium.

Here, they’re cooking, drying and mixing most of the ingredients before they go into the grinder.

It rained. A lot. I took this one the day my D700 went down from water damage. In fact, it’s one of the last photos from that body on this trip. I was out shooting the nutrition workers cooking up some Benemix to hand out.

Shooting memorial services is never easy. You try to stay out of the way, while still getting what you need. I was fortunate enough to get this one as the pall bearers were bringing the casket from the hearse to the chapel. As you can see from the uniforms, officers from several different departments came to the memorial.