I am 5’1”, I have no idea what the circumference of my head is for helmet size, and certainly have never measured the distance between my nipples. I would go downstairs and ask someone at the hotel for a measuring tape, but I don’t think the people at reception would send me anything to measure my head at 1:30am, because it would take them about 3 hours with the Korean English dictionary to figure out what the hell I am asking for, and I would surely jump out my window before going through that process right now. So, let’s say I have a medium head. As for the vest, my waist is about 29”, my chest is 34, and I have big boobs.
Also, the NYT Magazine says that the NYT bureau in Turkey might have a gas mask and a chemical suit I can use. It will most likely be sized for a large, burly man (as most war correspondents tend to be), but at this point, I don’t think I’d be able to slip my body into it within the 13 necessary seconds before the chemical gas arrives, anyway, so it should be fine. As for the camera gear, I would be forever indebted to you for an extra Nikon D1x battery, and for my feet, a pair of those warm socks you mentioned.
Thank you so much. Call if you have any more questions, and please let me know the cost of the vest before you go ahead and get it.
Lyns
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SOMEHOW, BETWEEN body-armor-planning sessions and anxiously watching the news, I strung together a semblance of a personal life. Eventually I gave in to Uxval’s proclamations of love and regret and invited him to live with me in Istanbul. I had one foot out the door, but I was lonely and I loved him, he was persistent, and this time he had a vision for our life together. Uxval was the son of two successful Mexican painters, and compared with them, he seemed directionless after leaving his previous job, and with an artistic calling he had never fulfilled. After we met, he started photographing, and he taught himself video to enable us to work alongside each other in Istanbul. I met him at the airport, brought him to our new home, and handed him a set of keys. The next morning I left for Iran and then Iraq, where I spent the next three months.
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IN TEHRAN I met Elizabeth for the first time and was immediately struck by her attractiveness, the way she managed to remain feminine in a profession that cloaked femininity with androgyny. Early on in my career I always dressed like a man—jeans or army pants, sturdy hiking boots, a modest top. I rarely wore colors other than black, brown, or gray and tried to dress as sexless and boring as possible. When I went home, I made up for months of this behavior by wearing tiny miniskirts and high heels. Elizabeth, who had worked in this business longer than I, seemed to have realized that retaining a bit of femininity was crucial to her sense of self or maybe to a sense of normalcy. I hadn’t realized yet how important that illusion of normalcy would become.
That week, we crossed into northern Iraq by road. Dozens of foreign journalists had made the journey before us, and we breezed through the checkpoints bordering the two countries. Elizabeth’s ease with everyone—the Iranian officials, the border guards—reflected the fact that she had spent ten years in conflict zones: Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Chechnya. She never took herself too seriously, and laughed easily with her subjects. Everywhere Elizabeth and I went, often as a friendly team of long-haired brunettes, people opened their doors to us. I wondered if they underestimated us because we were women in a part of the world dominated by men. Whatever the reason, I found it a great advantage: Elizabeth was one of the smartest journalists I had ever met.
About a hundred foreign journalists were shuttling between the Kurdish cities of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, and we eventually settled in the latter. Sulaymaniyah was a progressive city, with a wide avenue cutting through the center that was lined with low concrete buildings mixed with modern, glassy office towers. We took a room at the Ashti Hotel, a simple place with a dark lobby and seventies-style furniture that was chock-full of journalists. The only thing better than a nice hotel room was a nice hotel room where all the other journalists camped out: It was a way to keep up on the latest developments and conquer the boredom of our evenings.