I spent nearly eight years as a foreign correspondent with Reuters where I worked in more than a dozen countries. At the tender age of 22, I moved to Nairobi, Kenya to start my journalism career after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
With a few months under my belt working for Voice of America in Nairobi, Reuters took me on-board as a gofer to cover stories from riots and high-level corruption to currency movements and bond prices. I then spent the next two years living and working in Eritrea as one of only two foreign journalists in the country. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Uganda beckoned as my next posting. The conflict in the north had moved to neighboring countries, but the political situation was far from calm while the economic story was gaining speed. I was also in charge of coordinating coverage of Burundi and Rwanda.
To spice up my life in Kampala, Reuters sent me to Iraq a number of times to report on the war. While on assignment in the north, I found out I would next move to Bogota, Colombia. The news sparked my family to tell me, “Oh no, Colombia is so dangerous!” To which I responded, “I’m calling you from Iraq.”
The next three years I spent in Bogota learning how to say “credit default swap” in Spanish, covering conflict and politics, writing about oil and coal, jetting off to Afghanistan for three months, and finding my wife.
Jack Kimball 