Perspective

My job here is good for providing some perspective to life. For the past two days, I've been sitting around the house feeling vaguely queasy from some bug that's going around.

Today I felt well enough to work on a story for our annual report. I'm writing about the woman pictured above, who lost everything in the 2008 war in South Ossetia. Violence has been simmering there once again this week as the region holds elections.

This woman lost her job as a school principal, and then her husband died from the stress of fleeing home and learning that his house, along with the homes of his three sons, had been burned to the ground. Their entire village was destroyed.

Since then, she has started a bakery that's successful enough to employ five other women. Still, she dreams of the day she can go home.