Prince George, British Columbia

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The dark roast coffee machine at Super 8 produces a darn good cup of coffee. You’ve seen these machines that pour hot water through freshly ground beans into a paper cup at the push of a couple of buttons. I’m a convert.

I haven’t used my Level Ground Colombian coffee yet. I am saving it for a hotel that doesn’t offer good coffee at the touch of a button. But I am excited to try it.

For the 23-year duration of my humanitarian and development work, despite constant requests, I never gave an interview for three reasons. First, the US Department of Labor trained us never to speak to the press about our official work. I published a few articles—including one about my experience working at the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs—but always with the US Government’s approval. Second, I am an off-the-chart introvert. I don’t think well on my feet. I think and re-think, and words sometimes don’t come to me. Writing, I can pause and come back to it. I can search on the internet and find the most appropriate term. Now I have given presentations to as many as 800 people, but I have always practiced as many as 25 times until I know precisely what I am going to say. Finally, I froze once on live television. In 1984, at the age of 25, I had just returned from a couple of months in Pakistan and Afghanistan and was spending a few days in Naples, Florida, and agreed to meet a reporter to tell her about my experience in Russian-occupied Afghanistan. Immediately after the piece aired on the nightly news, a local news host asked me to visit her evening show. I did and was doing relatively well answering questions she asked until I looked up and saw myself on the screen. Right in the middle of a sentence, I lost my train of thought. And I sputtered for several of the most uncomfortable seconds of my life. I finally finished my thought in the most awkward way, we went to commercial break, and the cameraman had to laugh at my humiliating fiasco, as I suspect most of our viewers did. From that point forward, I avoided interviews, particularly live interviews, at all cost. (I don’t do well at job interviews, either, BTW, which is why I am always more tolerant of candidates during the interview process when I am hiring.)

In Asia and Africa, with very few exceptions, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) would not permit contractors (like myself) to speak with the media, but Honduras was an entirely different matter. For cultural reasons, I suspect, USAID insisted we conduct interviews and speak with the media. Fortunately, I always had very talented staff who enjoyed speaking to the media, and I delegated such responsibilities to them.

Today, as the founder and president of PeaceBridge Solutions, I have no such staff. We are growing and running on precious few donations, and I rely heavily on volunteers. But most of the time, I am the web designer, IT manager, president, logistics officer, communications officer, bookkeeper, compliance officer, and spokesperson.

R4P is an awareness-raising and exploration project, designed to promote goodwill. And I have conducted three interviews with journalists in Prince George and Whitehorse, and today I have my fourth on “Daybreak North with Carolina de Ryk” from Prince Rupert at the local Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio studio downtown at 7:10 am.

Although this takes me out of my comfort zone, I am less worried about a repeat of the fiasco 40 years ago. I am now more comfortable with myself and my introversion—which I once thought was a disability—and if something happens like that, I can just laugh at myself.

At 6:45 am, after five cups of coffee, I hopped on Lucy and rode a mile and a half to the CBC office. That’s where I met Bill Fe, a 50-year-old, soft-spoken, humble news broadcaster for the network. He is also a bike rider, so he invited me to bring Lucy into the dark and all-but-vacant office and prop her up beside the reception desk. Bill was the only one there at this hour. He showed me to the guest studio and brought me a cup of water in a CBC cup. I set up my phone to cover the live show and relaxed, as much as I could. I was having fun.

Johnny Carson was an introvert who disliked public appearances, parties, and restaurants outside of his show. When asked how he could do a monologue and host a show in front of millions of people each night, he said because he was in control.

It wasn’t until I read Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Cannot Stop Talking many years ago, that I felt I understood myself a little better. We do not suffer from some social disability that prevents us from succeeding in our careers. We find careers that suit our nature. We adapt to do the jobs we love.

The seven-minute segment went well. No freezes or awkward pauses. Carolina was lovely. I gave Bill an R4P t-shirt, and he gave me a CBC coffee cup, which was cool. Hearing Bill’s voice on the air versus his voice in person was really magical. It probably was almost identical, but something happens in your brain when processing the transition. When you hear radio hosts on the air or even the phone, you always imagine what the host looks like, but the body and appearance almost never match the image.

After the show, Bill showed me around the studio. I waited till his next news segment was over, and we chatted a little bit. Originally from Alberta, he got into broadcasting 25 years ago while in college. He volunteered for the university radio station, and someone told him he had a nice radio voice. So, he switched some of his classes to study broadcasting. Fresh out of college, he got a job in British Columbia, and he has loved it ever since.

At 8 am, I rode a few blocks to Cycle Logic to see if I could take a photo of the inside of the shop and of Noah, but they were still closed. So, I rode back to the room and washed clothes.

Since my job was terminated last month in the USAID closure, I have had to find health care for the family. It has been painful and expensive. I spent hours upon hours jumping lots of hoops and setting and resetting lots of passwords on different sites and making lots of comparisons. Essentially, the health care we ended up with costs about 400% of what I had as a US Government contractor for the past 11 years and covers 25% as much. I have prostate cancer, and suspect I will have to pay much more out-of-pocket for routine exams, and my wife will have to pay most everything out-of-pocket except catastrophic bills. Yet, she still has been unable to pay for it, despite spending a couple hours online and on the phone yesterday. But, hey, what can one expect from my government after 23 years of service and surviving deadly terrorist attacks and carrying around shrapnel in my body for a couple of decades, right?

There has to be a better way. Our US health care system is broken for more reasons than I can describe here. And there are valid arguments all the way around. But there has to be a better way. I just doubt I will see it in my lifetime.

I spent yet another 45 minutes on the phone with my wife trying to pay her new health insurance, resetting passwords, and failing for one reason or another. As I felt the tension and frustration rise, I told myself to let it go. If I really believe in my own mantras about “being a better person” and “becoming part of the solution,” like I preach, then I have to follow through.

So, I did. Immediately, I felt better.

After folding my clothes, I applied the sponsors’ decals on my gear, partially packed my saddlebags, and updated the website. I went to lunch at the Clay Oven restaurant here at the table and enjoyed the most wonderful mutton curry and naan.

My fifth-grade history teacher, Mr. McCrary, I think it was, told us about the quote, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” I don’t recall if he attributed it to the 18th-century French philosopher Francois-Marie Voltaire or not, but McCrary was trying to teach us a tenet of US democracy: Freedom of Speech. A lesson that serves as a cornerstone of my democratic values fifty years later.

How deeply do we genuinely believe this as Americans? As Canadians? Or do we only stand up for free speech when it is convenient, to protect our opinions? Are we willing to defend the right of our opponents publicly? Stand up for their right to state their opinion, right or wrong, on controversial topics like bombing Iran? Tariffs? Healthcare? Due process? Separation of powers?

Many years ago, I worked in Iraq as the Director of Anti-Corruption for a USAID-funded Iraqi Civil Society Project (ICSP). Before landing in Baghdad, the president of the non-profit sent me to Berlin to meet with Transparency International, the non-governmental organization that fought corruption globally. One key tenet I learned from them was to create a non-threatening environment of respect for all interactions with opponents. Through safe spaces, we can produce greater results than through antagonism.

PeaceBridge Solutions arose from a need to help communities heal. “We Operate in an Environment of Respect” is one of PeaceBridge’s core values.

Tomorrow morning at 9:30 am, I have my fifth interview with Matthew Hillier of the Prince George Citizen.