REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Sandy Tolan
It was one of those amazing last-minute assignments: a story of the men and women who risk their lives to make the land safe again, by taking deadly anti-personnel mines out of the earth. I'd been reporting other "World@Work" stories in Bulgaria and Macedonia, and had only just heard about the mine sweeper story along the Kosovo-Albania border, from an American journalist colleague, Barbara Frye. It was too strong a story to pass up. But because of an unforgiving schedule, I knew I would have only three days to get the story. Not only this: Because each of our "World@Work" stories will be a profile of a single worker, I needed to find one person who could represent the work in an articulate, compelling way, and who wouldn't mind me and my translator following him (or her) around for 48 hours or more. Everything had to break just right.
The Albanian mine action team from the border town of Kukes took me into the field. We rattled across washboard roads, passing shepherds moving flocks across stony pasture, old women pushing loads of fodder in wooden carts, and children walking miles to school, until we landed on a cold, isolated, windblown mesa near the Albanian town of Dubrona. The mine sweeping team would soon be taking a break; did I want to sign a sheet indicating my blood type, and walk to the rest area to meet the crew? I did. continued »
“During the war in Kosovo in 1999, all the villages have been destroyed by the Serb army and the houses have been burned and destroyed. With the income from this job we have rehabilitated the houses we have in the village.” — Valdet Dule
« previous They sat quietly, in refuge from the minefields, roasting sausages over a small campfire or munching cheese and bread brought from home. I introduced myself and my purpose: to explain this important work to a listening audience thousands of miles away. After a long moment, with the 12 men gazing at me—some quizzically, others perhaps skeptically—I launched right in: How did they feel about the work they did? Were they nervous on the job? What did their families think? How did the nearby villagers see their work? How was the pay? What was life like in their own villages across the border in Kosovo?
A couple of the men had little to say. They stared into their sandwiches. Others, conscious of their peers around them, ruminated on the future of Kosovo. Others complained of the low pay for such dangerous work; one asked about the prospects of work in America. In the middle of the group, across the fire from where I stood, sat a young man named Valdet Dule. He spoke humbly of his work, his people's aspirations, and his hopes for a strong future for his family, his village, and people on both sides of the border. He smiled easily, he spoke both softly and forcefully, and his body language suggested an openness that would convey the humanity of these workers to my own people so far away.
As the men rose to return to the minefields, I asked Valdet to stay. Would he be willing to talk more? Sure. Would it be okay if I followed him around as he worked for the next couple of days? Of course. Could I strap a tape recorder to him as he went into the field? No problem. Would it be all right if we actually went home with him to his village tomorrow? Why not?
For the next two days, my translator and I, along with photographer Dana Wilson, shadowed Valdet as he worked, and then we went with him to his village in Kosovo, where we ate with his family, heard harrowing stories from his friends, warmed ourselves around a campfire near the village's war memorial, and slept under piles of blankets in beds his family prepared for us.
In this way, through the generosity of one man and his family, we found the larger story of courage and commitment for the work being done by thousands of mine sweepers around the world.
