I'm most proud of maintaining my sense of identity, you know, because I had a lot of success, and the whole whirlwind sort of happened during very formative years for me,

It was such a beautiful summer’s night and I had pink hair and my band was doing really well and my mum was there, my mum was still alive. It was very magical for me and to get the honour of my city, to be blessed by their respect, it was delicious.

The progress we’ve made at home. For example, our debt issue. We inherited a 3.7 billion debt for our population and our export earnings. Today a majority of that debt has been cancelled and we’ve completed our first program with the IMF (International Monetary Fund). And also the restoration of hope. Today, you know, our image of being a pariah state, a failed state, has turned around completely. Whereas people — Liberians — were afraid to carry a Liberian passport, because you’d be seen as this nation of death and destruction. Today, Liberians are very proud to carry their passport because everybody sees Liberia as beginning to be uplifted and beginning to become a possible model of success, a post-conflict success story. I’m very proud of that turnaround in our image.

I cannot tell you even. I have to ask my son and my wife that were with me in the room because I came to say ”hello,” that I’m leaving. And, I was caught in total surprise. It’s wonderful. What can I tell you? Obviously, it’s wonderful. That’s the climax that every scientist can ever dream of. I will not deny that I am proud for me, for this science, for the state of Israel, for my family, for everybody.

For a photographer — it’s like actually taking a picture is like five percent of what I do. And the rest is research, reading, contact, setting things up, making contact, getting access, making people feel comfortable, doing the reporting, doing the interviews, getting the captions. It’s not getting there physically, the logistics on the ground. I mean, literally, taking a picture is the easiest part of my job.

My parents also said, “Don’t follow money. Follow your heart and you’ll be successful.” That’s all they told me and my sisters.

I think I naturally felt like I needed to pull back, and maybe that’s one of the reasons why I decided to get pregnant then because I was 37, and I had Lukas at 38. So I have not been covering combat recently. I haven’t covered combat in a few years. I’ve been in South Sudan. I’ve been under fire. But I’m not like — it’s a very different time, also, in history. … Now I feel like I was very torn about not being in Mosul, but I didn’t go because I felt like it was extremely dangerous, and I just couldn’t do that to my family.

So it affects my work in the sense that now I’ve been kidnapped twice. So now when I’m working in a place like Iraq — even if it’s northern Iraq and someone who hasn’t survived those two things would just drive on these roads and say, like, “Oh, this is great” — but of course, for me, all I see is ISIS around every corner. Or I envision the road filling up with insurgents because I’ve seen that, and I’ve been in that situation. So it affects my work in that sense, that I’m more paranoid than I ever was, certainly than I was in my 20s.