Reporters on the Job

• In the Himalayas: Staff writer Scott Baldauf traveled with several other journalists to a remote village in Kashmir to report about some of the quake relief efforts on the Indian side of the border.

As they arrived, they were surrounded by people. "They told us, 'we haven't gotten anyone to bring help to our village. You can see it, but it takes an hour to walk up there. Our dead haven't been counted, we have no food, and our injured aren't being treated,' " says Scott.

Some of Scott's colleagues had brought along blankets and sweaters to distribute in case there was a need. After they did their interviews in the village, they invited some of the children following them to come back down the mountain to the car.

"The blankets were in the car. As we we were giving them out, an Indian Army soldier came by and chastised us," says Scott. "He said the people were Muslim thieves. There may be profiteers reselling the aid being distributed, but from what I could see these people needed the help."

As an aside, Scott notes that even in India, a nation of one billion people, the world can seem small.

"I ran into the same nun from the Missionaries of Charity who helped us adopt our daughter in Delhi. She had been transferred to Kashmir. She asked us about what we'd seen and where there were people in need."

David Clark Scott
World editor