email interview

I am doing an email interview with a Chinese magazine and came across this question, hope they enjoy the answer.

"Did you come across any dangers during the trips? Would you please tell me 1 or 2 of them? Please tell me the details."

Dangers? Yes. Besides going blind as I told you about earlier I have almost drown twice on assignment for NGM. Once in a flooded river in Borneo and another time in the Myo Lake Room. I was descending a rope next to the waterfall and when I landed in the lake the force of the water flipped me over and held me upside down. 

I have gotten Malaria on assignment, sever intestinal disorders, allergic reactions to Malaria medicine, gotten hypothermia more times than I can count, been poisoned by hydrogen sulfide gas, had machine guns pointed at me, been shot at, survived kidnapping attempts, been exposed to rabies, gotten stung in the eye, been detained by the Iranian Police, been arrested in Sudan, had my passport confiscated in Abkasia... The list goes on and on.

There is even more of this sort of thing on the The PhotoSociety reality check page.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Comments

[411bee]

Yes and once you had to wait with me for a table at Chez Janou for almost 2 hours...

[GLENN CAMPBELL]

I've been hit with sticks, stones and broken a few bones myself..along with being bitten by a dog, prodded with a bayonet, rolled a car and crashed a plane..with a recurring case of Ross River Fever thrown in for good measure...

[Stephen Alvarez]

yes but no one would ever confuse me with a saint.

[Gibbons Burke]

Sounds a bit like what St. Paul went through, as he relates in his second letter to the church he founded in Corinth:

"Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches."