Paul Salopek: belief

Transcript context

…I know, of course. Yes, absolutely, but you’ve written about it, and it sounded amazing. What shocked you? I was sent there to do . . . It’s been ages since I’ve thought about this. Looking back from the distance of today, when was that? That was like mid-’90s, so we’re talking more than 25 years ago. What sticks still was being sent there to write about mountain gorillas — which is absolutely a valid decision to make, given the rarity of that species and what our relationship with wild animals has to teach us about being human — versus what was happening in the aftermath of this horrific genocide that had just happened in Rwanda. I felt myself to be very torn when I went there as a young reporter on my first assignment for National Geographic. I didn’t want to blow it, and yet, at the same time, having spent so many years in Africa as a hardcore conflict reporter, dealing with focusing on wildlife when there were 750,000 refugees living on lava fields just across the border in the Congo. Some of these refugees were not exactly innocent bystanders to the genocide. They were actually the perpetrators of the killings. I don’t even remember exactly how I handled that, but I think I tried to merge those two stories in a way that was maybe more about us than about mountain gorillas. I don’t recall if that was successful. What did you like best about Johannesburg?…

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