“So, how did it happen? How did you go from that dream to Reed Planet?”
He leaned back against the piling, his face lighting up as he continued the story. “I was in Uganda, maybe eight or nine months after I left Nuuk.”
“Uganda,” she repeated.
He shrugged. “I wanted to see gorillas.”
She laughed. “As one would.”
“There had been a few other brief stops between Greenland and there, with me just working odd jobs wherever I landed, still taking pictures, still writing everything down, trying to figure out how to make that particular dream come true. I’d started going to the local libraries wherever I was, like I did when we were growing up. Not for the books this time—well, not only for the books—but to use the computers to look things up, do research, figure out what I wanted to see where I was, where to go next.”
“Did you learn other languages? How did you communicate?”
“Most of the time not very well,” he said with a laugh. “But I figured out early on that if I made an honest effort to learn enough of the language wherever I happened to be, people would meet me halfway and try to figure out what I was attempting to say. English is spoken in more places than you could dream of, which is humbling, but I worked hard to be respectful, to speak to people in their native tongue whenever possible.” His lips curved in a dry smile. “I’m not fluent in anything, and I can’t read or write in a foreign language to save my life. But I’m a whiz at picking up a few dozen phrases and getting by.”
Chey bet it went a lot further than that. He didn’t just want fair treatment and respect for himself; he gave it to others. That’s who he was. “So, the video? Or streaming, or whatever you call it. When did that start?”
“It was video first. Streaming wasn’t even a thing then. It happened by accident really. The fluke,” he added, wiggling his brows. “I was actually truly playing tourist for a change. I was tagging along with a sightseeing group in a protected animal preserve, so I could hear what the tour guide was saying. One of the young guys on the trip didn’t heed the warnings about not feeding the wildlife. He’d snuck some crackers or something in somehow, and I don’t know how, because they controlled that kind of thing. Anyway, when we went to leave one area for the next, the wildlife in question thought they’d like to keep the young food source behind with them.”
“Oh no!”
“No one else had seen him slip off the side of the vehicle we were in. I didn’t want him to freak out, and I definitely didn’t want his parents to freak out—”
“Wait, how old was he?”
“Nine, maybe ten?”
“Oh my God, Wy.”
“I didn’t even really think about it. I just hopped off and went and got him. It wasn’t that I wasn’t scared. I was, but I’d spent years learning how to fit into new environments, so I kind of adopted the same strategy. I stayed calm, much like the guides were, joking, smiling, you know, no big deal. Talking to the gorilla, and to the kid, acting like I belonged there.” He shook his head. “The whole thing lasted maybe five minutes. Felt like a lifetime, I won’t lie. My heart was in my throat the whole time. But someone in the tour group filmed the whole thing and posted it to the Internet, and it went viral, as they say now. Which back then wouldn’t have meant what it does now, in terms of numbers. YouTube wasn’t that old at that point. So, it didn’t take as much to get noticed. I didn’t even know about it until way later. I got a call from someone who’d spent a few weeks tracking me down after seeing the video, wanting an interview.” He chuckled. “Instead of being a photojournalist, I got interviewed by one. I felt like such a failure; my goals were a joke.”
“Hardly, you saved that kid’s life.”
“Maybe. But I didn’t want to be the subject of a story—I wanted to tell the story, you know? Then I got to thinking, about the number of people who had viewed that video clip, and it finally clicked. I realized I was going about my dream all wrong. Why write about my experiences and try to show what was going on with still pictures, when I could bring my audience right there, invite viewers right in to experience it live and in person, or feel like they were, anyway. A lot of the comments on that video clip were about my attitude, how I came across, that people related to me, or found me funny, or easy to watch. So, as much as I didn’t want to put my face on things, I thought that might be the way to do what I wanted to do and be in total control of the story at the same time.”
“Pretty brilliant actually,” she said.
“I realized that I didn’t need anyone’s permission. I didn’t need someone to hire me to do this. I just needed some decent equipment, to be willing to put in long hours while I supported myself and pursued this passion on the side. Then it was a matter of figuring out where I wanted to go, what story I wanted to bring attention to, and using my five minutes of fame to start my own channel. The livestreaming part started much later, just a few years ago, in fact. That took things to the next level, opened more doors for me and for the work I’m doing.” He lifted his hands, then wrapped them back around his knee. “I haven’t been home much since.”
“Home,” she said, still marveling over his story, but not truly surprised by any part of it. He’d finally done what she hadn’t been able to do, connect the person he’d been then to the man seated before her now. She could see the evolution clearly now. He was a good storyteller. “Where do you call home these days? Not Nepal.” She shot him a wry look. “Or do you still feel like you have to tuck yourself away in the most remote place possible all the time?”
He shook his head. “No, not anymore. I have a croft in Wales, near Mount Snowdon. I bought it thinking I’d start my own little farm there, something to ground me between trips. Only somehow seven years have gone by since I bought it and I never seem to not have another proposal before I’ve finished my current trip.”
“What do you mean, proposal?”
“The work I’ve done in getting people to learn about various plights in far-flung places has come to the attention of a lot of small principalities and municipalities that otherwise have no voice, no beacon. I get asked all the time to come help shed some light on this story or that.”
“That’s . . . amazing.”
“Trust me, no one is more amazed than I am at how this has all taken off. It’s also a little overwhelming. I can’t do them all and it’s gotten increasingly harder to decide which to say yes to. I’m not a miracle worker. Some places see more benefit from the spotlight than others, but—”
“Like you said before, any is better than none. Without you they’d have no chance.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything else.
“So, do they pay you? These principalities? I mean, not to sound dense, but how do you keep a roof overhead? All this travel has to add up.”
He shook his head. “They may comp me and my crew a place to camp, a few rooms, or something. It all depends on where we are. But we don’t take compensation from them. We’re trying to help them, not be an additional strain on their resources.”