August-September 2001
After 50 weeks of daily assignments I wanted to go somewhere on a working vacation. I was pitching a story on the north of Afghanistan where aid workers were claiming children were dying in large numbers because food supplies were not reaching the area due to war between Massoods troops and the Taliban. No one seemed interested and due to time constraints I went instead to Maracaibo Venezuela to photo a humanitarian medical mission. Plastic surgeons from around the United States were going to spend two weeks fixing the faces of disfigured children. Normally these children became discards, thrown into the street, ostracized for their cleft palates. This surgery would change their lives. I thought it was a great story. Over two weeks the doctors and nurses, all volunteers, did more than 200 operations, a feat that could not be accomplished in the beaurocratic United States. I watched as mothers broke down and cried when they saw their child, for the first time, smile. I returned to the United States on September 9, 2001. By 10 am on the 11 th , I was on my way to New York City, where I spent the next 30 days in constant motion. I didn't look at the film of the children for over a year.
VENEZUELA