Nick Kristof

I applied for the Nicholas D. Kristof Trip today. Below is the essay I submitted as to why I'd make a good travel companion:

I want to see.

I spent much of my childhood hearing about the poor starving kids in several different African nations whenever my parents wanted me to finish my vegetables. I would chew my green beans and force a weak smile and hang my head down a bit to show I felt bad. That’s the only purpose those children seemed to serve to me growing up, to guilt me into obedience.

It’s a common parenting tactic here in America, using those less fortunate than us to make us appreciate better the things we have and behave. Sadly, all the value our country sees in the people of the third world is just that, as tools of discipline. These people deserve more than that, they deserve our direct attention. Even more, they need our action.

I want to see the third world because I don’t know what it’s like for the people living there. Sure, I’ve read about the poverty and conflict all over the planet and I care about it, but I don’t really know what it’s like to live with it. Disease, violence, hunger and despotism are causing great pain to millions of innocents around the world and Americans must pay more attention. We may not want to admit it, but the problems in other countries eventually affect us as well.

It’s easy for me or any other reporter to just regurgitate the latest reports from Sudan or footage from Liberia, what’s hard is going out there ourselves to witness more of it and force the rest of the world to look. We journalists must go out there and bring back the truth because these people only know what we tell them.

There’s little effort in rattling off scary statistics like the number of people who die worldwide for want of clean water (14,000 each day, 9,500 of them children, according to James Thebaut’s documentary “Running Dry). It’s just that easy, but it doesn’t work because Americans are desensitized to big numbers about bad things. Telling someone there is a bunch of people suffering doesn’t do much on its own. Seeing it for myself, finding the truth firsthand and bringing the painful details back to the world, however, would be another thing altogether.

Mr. Kristof, I ask you to consider me for your travel companion on the trip you are planning for this summer. I would be happy to go no matter the destination or duration, just as long as I can put my own two eyes and two ears to good use.

Travel by land, sea, and air with as little baggage as possible is fine with me. I have experience in camping, hiking and going to unfamiliar places to find stories. Writing under difficult conditions is no problem, and sleeping on the ground with unpleasant insects sounds quite all right.

The possibility that I may be changed by this expedition does not bother me. I welcome the chance to have an experience capable of changing who I am and what I understand about the world. All I ask is for a chance to see what is out there.

Please, let me find the truth.

Wish me luck.