Reporters on the Job

• Pinching Pesos: This is the kind of tale that endears reporters to editors managing a tight budget. Staff writer Danna Harman couldn't abide paying $2 per minute roaming charges to use her US cellphone while in Mexico. "I was staying at a hotel just four miles from the border. I needed to call people on the US side and I noticed that when I got within a few hundred yards of the border, the phone thought I was in the US again and the rates dropped," she says.

So, while Danna worked on today's story about Mexicans crossing over to buy houses and give birth in Texas (page 1), she made the El Dorado restaurant and bar her second office. It was located in Nuevo Larado, Mexico, just steps from the bridge to the US. "The place was empty. So, the waiters in their white tuxedos were happy to let me rent a table for the price of a cup of coffee and make my calls," she says. "I certainly wasn't going to spend $5 to call someone five miles away in the US."

• Aceh Relief Boat: Several readers have contacted the Monitor offering to support the work of Samuel Schultz in Indonesia, as reported in the Feb. 4, article, "One man's mission to bring relief to cut-off villages."

Mr. Schultz can be reached at:

Aceh Coastal Fishery Renewal Project
Care of Samuel Schultz
Post Office Box # 117
Ubud Bali 80571
Indonesia
Tel./Fax: 62-361-976620
E-mail: astarel@indo.net.id

Wire transfers can be sent to:

Bank Central Asia
Ubud Bali Branch
Account Name: Samuel Schultz
Account #: 1350224897
Swift code: CENAIDJA
Attention: Aceh Coastal Fishery Renewal Project

David Clark Scott
World editor