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I
work well away from News in a BBC department called Documentaries.
I really enjoy my job. I love being able to create programmes
from scratch and I have got a great deal of satisfaction working
in my department. That said, there came a period in the spring
of 2003 when something just didn’t feel right. I found myself
feeling seriously resentful about issues which I normally live
with. I found it incredibly difficult to focus on my work.
It was a while before I started to work it out but it seems to
be to do with experiences I have had while recording in East Africa.
Each trip has seemed like an amazing opportunity — and
something of a miracle. Each time I’ve set off, I’ve
been full of trepidation as well as excitement. There's no question
that the problems which Africa faces frighten me. I am afraid
of the poverty, disease and suffering as well as the instability,
the violence. Each of the programmes I have made have looked at
aspects of these conditions — Ebola virus, famine, HIV,
and water provision.
There have been plenty of incidents during these trips when I’ve
been concerned about safety issues. That's not the real point
of trauma awareness, but I certainly think that the insecurity
made me feel more vulnerable.
In May last year, I spent a week alone in Ethiopia's poorest
town, recording documentary material on the 1974 famine. As I
arrived at the hotel there was a four-year old child sitting outside
my room with an uncanny likeness to my own daughter.
I made friends with her and she waited for me every day for the
rest of my visit. It turned out that she lived opposite the hotel
with her two sisters. Their parents had died within the last year
from AIDS.
I spent each day recording harrowing testimony from famine victims,
and when I came back to the hotel each day, Fekerte was waiting
for me. We'd play for a while until she went to bed, but when
I went to bed I was really haunted by her.
I felt incredibly upset about her, I felt protective of her,
and I had massive panic attacks at the thought that somehow being
with her I might become HIV positive and that I would return home
and infect my daughter.
I knew at the time that this was a neurotic reaction but I couldn't
control it. I couldn't sleep. It was made worse when I realised
that Fekerte was hopping with fleas and I was bitten all over
— what if????
Fekerte and her sisters really got under my skin. I found a way
of resolving some of my feelings by arranging to sponsor them
- in many ways a way for me to make peace with myself as much
as it was practical for them.
But when I came back to the UK from Ethiopia I felt absolutely
devastated and it took me weeks to feel like myself again. I had
absolutely no awareness of trauma, and as far as I know nor did
my manager or anyone in the department. I wanted to forget about
the feelings of fear and panic asap. I didn’t talk to any
of my colleagues or my editor about what had happened. I edited
the tape, made the programmes, and moved on to the next project
(pornography in Pompeii …).
Earlier this year, I started setting up a recording trip in Ethiopia
and Kenya for the World Service water season. I was recording
“water walks” — a very simple idea to follow
people as they went to get water.
When I was planning my trip I already knew the environment —
dry, dusty, remote — and had met the local aid officers
who I would work with. Preparing from London I was pretty confident
that I would be able to record an Ethiopian water walk —
even though it was a very long distance in dry and hot conditions.
The BBC decided to send someone with me. I was keen to have company
and sure that the presence of another journalist made the trip
on the whole less stressful — after all, last time I had
been on my own and maybe if I had had someone with me it would
have been easier. However, when this was suggested I said whoever
came needed to be very fit. I even pointed out I might not be
fit enough myself ...
In the event, we set out from a remote and very poor Ethiopian
village before dawn with Maku, a mother of three, to collect water
from the Awash River.
It took us four hours to get there walking across the Rift Valley
without roads so no car backup, and as soon as the sun came up
it really started to get hot. After a rest by the river, we turned
back. Within an hour or so my colleague was in trouble —
and eventually collapsed. We just had to sit and wait for her
to recover.
Maku was very anxious to get home because her two-year-old daughter
was seriously ill and needed her. My colleague was horrified that
we had had to stop recording. Make the programme, she gasped.
When she revived, we walked on.
We eventually made it back to Maku's home, finished recording
and returned to Addis Ababa. That evening, bizarrely, we were
drinking cocktails next to the hotel swimming pool.
Obviously, it was a nightmare — but my own reactions really
surprised me. For a start, I found myself without any sympathy
for my colleague. In fact, I felt angry with her, even though
she was the one who collapsed. At one point she was lying on her
back, and I thought she might have died — and it made me
even more furious!
It was after I came back from this second trip to Ethiopia that
I really ground to a halt. I knew that I was upset about what
had happened – but I focused all my energy on the logistics
side of our experience. It was almost by chance that someone put
me in touch with the BBC trauma project. I thought that this was
a sort of extension of security awareness and went along with
that in mind.
It was only on reflection, and on reading and re-reading the
‘Journalism and Trauma’ leaflets that I realised that
trauma described my reactions very accurately. It was a shock
to see it all set out in a few bullet points — down to the
persistent back ache. This was the first time it had occurred
to me that it might be important for me to discuss my reactions
to what had happened while recording with friends, and with my
editor and colleagues. And it’s made an enormous difference.
So now I have the tools to deal with how I’ve been feeling
— strangely, it all seems incredibly obvious. Thinking back
over the past year I am pretty sure that most of my problems could
have been avoided if I had been aware of trauma potential. For
a while, I wondered if I should avoid difficult assignments, but
I’m not going to. I’m sure that I can manage my reactions
by facing up to them, and I think that in some ways they are entirely
appropriate.
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