I really liked the Road is Very Unfair, the story was inherently dramatic, and I liked that it explained a lot of the mindset behind why AIDS is so persistently spreading in Africa. It was a little long, but I feel like all of the imagery and issues addressed were necessary for the story arc and the message. He definitely needs to have himself in the story, as how the turnboys interact with him illustrate the culture he is describing. His quotes are really well placed and pertinent, the scenes were he is a complete outsider are very poignant like the one with the drunk Rwandan soldiers contemplating stabbing him. It just shows through how fascinated he is with these people and this place and how much he cares, but how helpless he is.
Access wasn't as good I don't think. It was in a similar area socially and economically, but reading somebody complain about bureaucracy isn't quite as interesting as pure survival. I had a hard time keeping my attention focused on this piece. Also it felt a lot less personal, there wasn't the sheer number of colorful characters that developed over the story. These were good stories to contrast though, with ethical dilemmas of writing about your subjects in difficult situations, and writing about a world you are relatively foreign to.
Telling True Stories was uninformative as usual. Maybe I'm just dense.
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