Daily concerns

It is a funny way to receive news - in broken skype chats and random emails. Filtered by various friends, as they re-phrase and decide how much they should tell me.

Kidnappings have begun in Haiti. Foreign aid workers are specifically targeted. Two young women, held at gunpoint in a car in a quiet road outside a restaurant. In the matter of fact manner of those accustomed to risk, a friend tells me the women probably only have until this weekend - and then they will be killed or the NGO will cough up and pay the ransom - and all my friends in Porte au Prince will become that much more unsafe.

It is not in the media yet, but the humanitarians are under curfew and vehicles must travel in twos. Sat here in Berkeley communication comes startlingly into focus, before they are caught up again in their meetings and their world of tents, refugee camps and hygiene promotion.

And I contemplate a conversation last night with a film-maker about meaningful lives. The challenge of making our lives meaningful seems harder in the sun, coffees and stress of graduate school, where being kidnapped is so very far from a daily concern.