Find a calm, quiet place. If this isn’t possible, turn on some calming music to block out the distracting noise.
• Sit or lie comfortably. Put one hand on your stomach and the other on your chest.
• Inhaling through your nose, take a long, deep breath that feels as if it is coming from your stomach, counting slowly to six as you do so. You should feel the hand on your stomach moving the most.
• Breathe out through your mouth, again counting slowly to six.
• Continue breathing in this way and you will find that the oxygen relieves stress and helps settle your mind. Simply concentrating on your breathing will rest your brain for a minute. It is a type of meditation.
Once you have learnt this basic technique, you can play around. For example, lie down with a book on your stomach and watch it rise up and down; breathe through one nostril, then the other; hold your breath, keeping the nostrils shut with your fingers, and count to six before breathing out again. Use your imagination to think of other ways to keep the exercise interesting. Mary O’Shea tells me that her stress antidote is to recite The Wasteland.
Lie down in a comfortable position and think your way through your body from toes to head or vice versa, systematically tensing and then relaxing your muscles. Hold each muscle tense for around eight seconds before letting go.
This exercise will also help you to learn what your muscles feel like when they are tense. This means that when you feel the signs you can take a moment to relax.
I am useless at meditation, but many close friends and colleagues swear by it. Some of them have two kids and two jobs, yet they still manage to find half an hour a day for themselves. It’s just a question of making it a priority, they tell me. They say they have their best ideas after their mind has been cleared by meditation.
Meditation is not about staring into the middle distance: it is an intense form of concentration on something that would normally pass you by. You are aiming for a mind-full-ness rather than an empty mind. It’s all about finding something peaceful and positive to concentrate on. You don’t even have to be still.
• Go for a walk and concentrate on your breathing, the wind and smells and sights. Be aware of each step.
• When you eat turn off the television and put down the book; try to focus your attention on the meal and how each bite feels inside your mouth.
• Try thinking your way up or down your body, considering each individual part and how it feels.
• For more intense meditation, turn off all distractions, put a ‘Do not disturb’ sign on your door and find a comfortable position.
• Pick something to concentrate on, whether it is your breath, a scene in your mind or a word or phrase. Close your eyes and keep your mind on your chosen thing for as long as you can.
• If your mind drifts off, don’t worry – just bring it back to your focus and carry on.
Never try to use a dangerous trip as a chance to diet. Eat. You will lose weight anyway, believe me.
11/ Surviving with and Without Weapons
I don’t have a weapon. I just carry a camera.
In many parts of the world you can buy small arms along with your bread at the market. I remember taking one BBC reporter to the Basra black market, where, for $100, he ‘bought’ a tank that had surrendered during the invasion. ‘It’s in full working order,’ he told me proudly. I didn’t tell him that every reporter who came through went down to the market and posed for the same snapshot – ‘Me and My Tank’. The tale was worth the $100 alone. The old man to whom the tank ‘belonged’ had a toothless grin as big as his wallet as he waved off his buyers and waxed the barrel of his gun for another day.
There is little doubt that carrying a weapon can give you more confidence in a dangerous world – especially if you know how to use it.
Patrick Hennessey, a former British army officer, says: ‘Survival in a war zone is obviously a little different for a soldier than it is for a civilian. I got a taste of that difference when I returned to Helmand a few months after finishing my five years’ service with the British Army as an infantry officer and found myself ambushed on patrol, only this time as a freelance journalist embedded with my former comrades. The adrenalin rush was the same, as was the heightened sense of awareness, the noise and noticing the absurd details (this time a bright pink rose that minutes earlier I had been given by a local farmer and which had fallen into the muddy water at the bottom of the ditch into which we’d jumped for cover). One thing, however, was worryingly different, and that was having a camera in my hands instead of a rifle. It was the most naked and useless I’ve felt in a long time.’
Some people don’t have a choice in whether or not they should carry a weapon ‘just in case’. Most NGOs, medical personnel and others working or visiting a highly armed society won’t be allowed one, and won’t want to touch one.
Dr Carl Hallam, who works for MSF, told me: ‘Having been on both sides of a gun, I advise never to underestimate the confidence and swagger it gives if you are the one with the weapon. If you don’t have a gun, you are a very small guy compared to the one who does. As aid workers, we are always unarmed. Therefore it’s difficult for most to imagine the difference between being unarmed and armed.’
Producer Shelley Thakral says: ‘At the BBC we don’t have weapons, and of course it’s better that way. As a journalist working in a dangerous place, you change the job dynamic the moment you start arming yourself.’
As well as the risks to your independence, just having a gun on your person can be a dangerous thing. In a draw, the one with most experience is going to win.
My colleague Jane Dutton, who lives in South Africa, told me: ‘My dad lent me a small handgun after a family friend was shot and another friend of ours was broken into, but I gave it back after a week. I knew it would get used if I found someone breaking into my house. I was angry and scared enough. But nine times out of 10 the criminal will end up using your handgun against you. I didn’t want that risk.’
Warning: If you use a weapon in a war zone, it can change your legal status to ‘mercenary’ under the Geneva Convention (see Medics) – not a particularly good idea if you are captured.
Chris Cobb-Smith, who has contributed to earlier parts of this book, is my security expert. I asked him for advice on the subject of guns, and for a few basic instructions on how to work a weapon if you really need to use one.
/IS THE SAFETY ON?
Few subjects cause as much controversy as that of firearms. However, it is unavoidable, an ever-present fact of life, and encountered continually in the high-risk regions so much in the news today.
For some, carrying a firearm is as natural as carrying a mobile phone, almost a natural extension of the arm – a comforting and continually present friend. For others they are objects of bewilderment and revulsion: ‘Why on earth would I want a gun?’ Whatever stand you take, some rudimentary knowledge is necessary, and here is some advice: