Reporters on the Job

• PAPER OR PLASTIC? While reporting on the 10-day Earth Summit (story, page 1), Monitor Africa correspondent Danna Harman noticed that people at the conference were anxious about throwing away trash, lest someone complain that a recyclable item had been sorted incorrectly or discarded. "I was nervous myself," says Danna. "Whenever I finished a candy bar, I found myself standing at the multitudes of recycling bins trying to figure out if the wrapper had more paper or more plastic." Danna says that she ended up placing the wrappers or other questionable items nonchalantly on some tabletop. "I noticed others in the same fix – a sign of growing awareness, but uncertainty over what to do with that awareness."

• THE MAGIC OF MOJO: Clark Boyd's journey into Morocco's Atlas Mountains to cover the Imilchil Brides' Festival (page 7) meant 16 hours of hard driving, and even harder navigating, in a little red Renault. "My driver and fixer, Abdelhak Karach, took on the Herculean task of getting us there," Clark says. "After I drove for 15 minutes on the harrowing, one-lane road, he looked at me and said, 'Please, you're scaring me. Let me drive.' " As the pair rocketed through small towns, Abdelhak blasted "Got My Mojo Working" by B.B. King on his CD player. "What is Mojo?" Abdelhak kept asking. "I tried to explain," Boyd says, "but it wasn't until we saw two young Berbers talking toward each other and then dancing that he understood."

REUNION: During the Afghan war, reporter Scott Baldauf worried about the safety and whereabouts of Karim, the young subject of a previous story. The school where Karim took art classes last fall was closed, after the landlord upped the rent. Happily, Scott found Karim in class at the new location. (story, page 8).

– Margaret Henry

Europe editor

CULTURAL SNAPSHOT