I remember surfing in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, even Madeira, when local fishermen had never seen a surfboard before, and refused to believe that we could ride a wave on one.

Rich white people show up in a poor country to pursue their leisure-time fun, get served by black and brown people, and live in relative - or absolute - comfort. In the water, that situation can get turned on its head, though. Local kids learn to surf, know the breaks, and take most or all of the best waves, fuming turistas be damned.

I'm trying to find out what's actually true, which is nearly always something, if not a world of things, that you can't read in books.

Even wars, big conflicts that have drawn a lot of news coverage, sometimes seem to me to have a center that hasn't been described, that might yet be glimpsed if approached from some odd angle.

I remember surfing in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, even Madeira, when local fishermen had never seen a surfboard before, and refused to believe that we could ride a wave on one.

Speaking generally, I think it's useful to acknowledge explicitly the power imbalance between a journalist and the protagonists in a story about poor people, even to make that imbalance part of the story - and to redress it, narratively, where you can.

You're after something - not a story, but a certain, exquisitely intense encounter with beauty - and the only way to find it is to tiptoe past the dragon's cave.