by Natasha Tynes | Mar 21, 2004 | Doha affairs, Everyday me!, Travel
My health is bad at the moment. I spent the weekend in bed … Sore throat, frequent coughs and general fatigue.
As for the Tunisia trip, it is actually proving to be a headache due to some expected complications. Don’t know when or if I am going to cover the summit. I should “know bukra” (tomorrow) … yeah whatever!
Meanwhile, the saga with Qtel continues. Our landline was disconnected just three weeks after its installation … of course this comes with no explanation. So here we are, once again sans phone and sans internet. In other words, completely isolated.
After making a couple of phone calls it turns out that we have exceeded our bill limit for this month. Could this be possible? No! And who said there was a bill limit in the first place? It is becoming obvious Qtel sucks and they control everything here: cable, mobile, internet and all local and long distance telephone. This is the usual situation when a company has a monopoly says my spouse, the telecom conspiracy theorist.
The issue still remains a mystery and requires further investigation.
by Natasha Tynes | Mar 13, 2004 | Everyday me!, Film
We finally made it. We moved to our new apartment on the third floor.
We are pretty pleased with the new place although there is still work to be done. Jeff moved everything on his own on Wednesday night as I worked until midnight that day.
The poor boy! His back is still hurting from all the moving.
That was the highlight of the weekend. As usual, there were also movies and pancakes. We watched Darkness: horrible horrible, not recommended, The Italian Job: an overrated “guys’ flick” and White Oleander, which is actually really very nice.
by Natasha Tynes | Mar 9, 2004 | Everyday me!, Travel
I spent most of the day working out the details of the upcoming trip. This entailed calling Tunisa and man, that was fun, as I got to try out my long-forgotten French.
The Tunisian Arabic is anything but mainstream and so different from my Arabic! It was fun, as we managed to communicate somehow, through a mixture of Arabic, English and French.
by Natasha Tynes | Mar 8, 2004 | Travel
So my Tunisia proposal has been approved!
The plan is that I will be there at the end of the month. I feel challenged at the moment, as the Arab Summit is really a big event. I have already started doing some research but there is a lot of work to be done.
I wanna make sure that I fully understand the subject before I start reporting on it. Tunisia, Tunisia here I come.
by Natasha Tynes | Mar 7, 2004 | Jordan, my nation, Media watch
The first time I met her was at press conference last year. She was working as a photographer for AFP. It was the first time for me to meet a female photojournalist in Jordan, as this career is usually dominated by men.
I ran into her maybe once or twice after that and she struck me as smart, very friendly and full of energy. We even talked about Jeff and I asked her if AFP was looking for freelance photographers. She was very helpful and gave me some good tips. I was shocked today to read that she passed away in Madrid at the age of 34.
Why her? She had so much to give! I think I am depressed.
‘A shooting star’
By Randa Habib
When she joined AFP-Amman in the summer of 2001, Leila Gorchev brought with her not just the great talent of an artistic photographer, but also the smile and the kindness of a great human being.
Her curiousity about everything around her, her sensitivity, that made her special, her talent behind a camera, which was her way of expressing the beauty in her and the serenity she was looking for — all these made us feel privileged to have her as a colleague.
I remember the time she accompanied me for an interview, of Their Majesties King Abdullah and Queen Rania. At the end of the interview, Leila asked King Abdullah for “just one more.” Gracefully, the King went back to the living room, and we started chatting again, so Leila could take “some more portraits.” No one could say no to her.
Through her eyes, Leila Gorchev made us all see parts of Jordan in a different light. Her pictures were so amazing, that we decided to use a Wadi Rum shot taken by Leila as a New Year greeting card. She managed to transform the vast desert sands into a sea of hope.
Last summer, Leila decided to follow her heart and her talent elsewhere.
She passed away in Madrid, the city that represented for her the dream and the future…
But the future was not to be for Leila. She was 34 years old.
Leila Gorchev was a shooting star.
The writer is the director of Agence France-Presse/Amman.
