Reporters on the Job

• HAND IN HAND: The Monitor's Scott Baldauf has done reporting at orphanages before. It's always emotionally wrenching, he says. He went to the Alauddin orphanage in Kabul, Afghanistan, several times, trying to arrange different meetings with boys and teachers and orphanage directors (page 8). "Each time the young orphans came up to shake my hand. These are boys who want affection, who want a normal childhood. It's not that the orphanage is neglecting them. But some boys wouldn't let go, so we would walk down the hall hand in hand until the boy was shooed off by an orphanage employee."

• CHAOS OR WORLD CUP? Liberia is bracing for civil chaos (this page), and everyone is making contingency plans should the situation take a turn for the worse. The Monitor's Danna Harman says that among the diplomatic community there are ladders being propped up on walls between compounds to establish an escape route. She, too, has contacted Embassy officials and arranged for a seat on a helicopter, should the need arise. "Every night as I go to sleep I put together my important stuff – like my passport, my laptop, my diary, my contact lenses – so that I'm ready if there's a need to move quickly in the middle of the night."

On Friday afternoon, while working at her computer, she heard some shouting coming from the street. She quickly stored her story on a disk and ran to pack. "It turned out it was just the start of the World Cup tournament," she says.

David Clark Scott
World editor

MILESTONE