Claire here: The relief of making it through a border crossing into a new country always makes me a bit high spirited, so the clouds didn’t bother me at all, at first. Then the questions at passport control settled a bit deeper: have you ever been in a war zone before? The armor of all the special preparations I’d made—extra insurance, heavy duty medical supplies, a detailed itinerary—might still not be enough for the weight on the psyche of a population under threat for the last three years. First it was a grandfather holding tightly to a toddler, waiting by the roadside. Where was the loved one that connected these two? Were they coming back? Our years and years of touring and observing gave me a pang of intuition. Later, as I wandered around town, my naive behavior caught the attention of a policeman. I was trying to translate a bulletin board featuring the local PD’s most wanted. It’s his job to spot peculiar behavior.

On my way home, I visited what will likely be the first of many memorials we’ll see, remembering the locals killed in this war. Some were in the military, many were civilians, pictured in candid photographs with nothing darker than what’s next on their schedule reflected in their eyes.