Don’t assume that everyone understands the situation as well as you do. Make things crystal clear to those around you. Remember, everyone on the team has a responsibility to make sure the rest know what is going on.
Don’t assume you always have the best ideas. Be prepared to listen and learn.
Check and double-check that everyone knows the risks and exactly what to do in a disaster because you might not be there to shout instructions.
Zeina Khodr, an Al Jazeera English correspondent, talked to me about looking after the weakest link: ‘You need to have thought and talked about the worst eventualities. I was in Kandahar during the election in Afghanistan in 2009. We were well staffed. We had two local guys, but also two guys from our head office to help work the satellite. They had never been anywhere dangerous before and nobody briefed them about what to expect. They were terrified that the Taliban were going to take over the town. They would hear mortars and they would panic. We sat down with them and I explained what was going to go on. We talked through the worst-case scenarios – from suicide bombing, mortars landing and car bombs to major armed assault and take-over. Everyone in the team should know what’s going on. That was the first time I realized that we didn’t have an exit plan. I had started to take it for granted that everyone knew what was going on. So we worked out a plan.
‘I come from Lebanon. I grew up in a civil war. We don’t think of insurance, we don’t think of exit plans. We used to film fighting in the morning and go clubbing in the evening. It is only recently I have realized that we need to ensure the safety of the whole team – to look after the weakest link. You should have an exit plan before it happens: this is damned important.’
When thinking about your exit plan the place you decide to stay is key.
/WHERE TO STAY
I arrived at our house in Baghdad late one afternoon after a 16-hour drive from Amman. I had been told it was in a leafy Christian suburb, away from the hectic dangers of the capital’s centre. We parked up. I was very excited about being able to pee after so many hours on the road. A white van drove slowly past on my right. On my left a man started running and the van sped up. Inside I could see men in black masks. Shots rang out, the man stopped running and fell to the ground. The van sped away and we ran to see the body of what we were told was the local booze shop owner. It was my first dead body, my first picture on my new camera. A man murdered in broad daylight on my quiet suburban street. We were, in fact, not very far from what became Sadr City – the heartland of the Shia militia run by a man most of the press were calling the ‘renegade cleric’, Moqtada al Sadr. The Mehdi army were our neighbours.
But we stayed in our chosen house, preferring to be amongst people who would protect us and our reputation as a ‘paper of the people’ than be sitting targets in a hotel. That was our decision and we made it work.
Choosing the right place to stay is the key to being able to sleep at night, eat well during the day, and open a window without fear of being burgled. It should be researched and thought about properly before you arrive, and constantly checked thereafter.
Check the location of the building and find out what key official buildings are nearby. Does the threat of their being targeted outweigh the usefulness of their proximity?
What kind of security is there at night? Outside lighting is a minimum, CCTV is good, but guards and a checkpoint are even better.
Who else is staying in the building? There are no hard and fast rules about who the ideal occupants are. If there is no one at breakfast and lots of shady-looking businessmen making deals at night, you probably want to avoid it. If it is a well-known hang-out for one side or another during a war, and therefore a potential target, you should probably avoid it. Strange as it sounds, I was once told that any hotel where prostitutes feel safe to hang out is often a safe one…for women at least.
Where are the nearest police station and hospital? You need to know how to get to both these places, so find out where they are and drive the route. Being close to a police station is almost always a good idea – unless the police are part of the problem.
Ask about the local area. Find out if it is known for being safe. If it isn’t, find out what the locals do to avoid trouble. It might mean not travelling at night or knowing which streets to avoid on your morning jog.
Check room security. The locks on the doors and windows need to be secure.
Avoid having a room on the ground floor – it is the most easily burgled. And avoid any rooms with balconies that can be reached from the ground.
Never let anyone know where your room is. If you’re staying in a hotel, meet visitors in the lobby. Tell the desk that you are staying in a different room – the one where your security man is staying.
Choose a room for its proximity to an emergency exit. How close is the fire escape? Check the route for padlocks and work out a way to avoid them.
For the sake of your sanity there are several things you can do to improve your day-to-day life…
Nick Toksvig says, ‘It’s a good idea to hire extra rooms for offices and equipment. Otherwise some poor person’s room will become the de facto office till the wee hours of the morning, everyone smoking and drinking.’
Mary O’Shea and I originally met on a sweaty floor mat under a tent near Timbuktu, both of us doubled over with food poisoning, but that’s another story. She now works as an election observer, moving hotel every two months all year round. When choosing a room, she recommends: ‘Never higher than the third floor. Soviet-manufactured fire engines in developing countries do not reach higher than this. Never ever stay in a room with bars on the window (tricky in south Asia). Avoid any room with windows facing onto the street or the hotel entrance. I was once advised never to get into a lift with anyone else. This is nearly impossible, however. Ideally, stay on the outskirts of a town so that you are not trapped if there are street protests.’
My personal phobia in hotel rooms is cockroaches. I once found five on my bed in a shockingly bad hotel in southern Nepal. The whole town was on an electricity blackout, and as I crunched across the floor in flip-flops, my head-torch flicked down from my crawling bed to the shiny, wriggling black carpet around my feet. I hadn’t slept for a couple of days, so I took two sarongs from my bag, swept the roaches off my pillow and made myself a stripy head-to-toe shroud to keep ’em out till morning. Next time my grumpy correspondent recommended a hotel, I pretended I couldn’t hear him. Sarongs are a key piece of kit.
In her years spent filming dodgy and dangerous diseases in the outback of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Filipino slums and all sorts of other glamorous locations, Laura McNaught has picked up some key things to avoid. ‘Make sure you get a room that is away from the entrance, the restaurant, the bar, the pool, the barking dogs, the Chinese take-away, the nightclub next door… Alternatively, bring earplugs.’
Other great tips from Laura include: ‘Bring a T-shirt that can double up as a second, protective pillowcase. Bring a silk sleeping bag and never sleep naked, no matter how hot it is.’ She also notes: ‘A mini bottle of Cif goes further than alcohol handwash when you’re cleaning the doorknobs, light switches and phone.’ It’s wise to do this if you’re in an area where sickness is spreading as the cleaners rarely remember to do it.