Petra Procházková
Petra Procházková is an award-winning Czech journalist, humanitarian worker and writer. In 1994, she founded the private news agency Epicentrum, dedicated to war reporting with fellow journalist Jaromír Štětina. They have covered events in Abkhazia, Afghanistan, Czechnya, East Timor, Georgia, Nagorny, Karabakh, Kashmir, Kurdistan, Ossetia, and Tadjikistan.
On her return to the Czech Republic, Petra founded the humanitarian organization Berkat for the support of children and women in Chechnya and Afghanistan (where she has acted as a correspondent in recent years) and for refugees living in the Czech Republic. In 1997 she was awarded the Ferdinand Peroutka Prize, and in 2000 the President of the Czech Republic presented her with a Medal of Merit. In 2001, the Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award was bestowed on her by Madeleine Albright.
“Kabul was fairly peaceful now and Grandpa seemed to have started wasting away since the bombing stopped. For the past twenty-three years the excitement of war had kept him really fit. Now he was giving up.”
“As we drove around town I felt like the queen of Afghanistan. People were waving at me and the joy felt by the few women we came across radiated through their burkas. Everyone understood this meant more than just the departure of the Taliban from Afghanistan.”
“Grandpa, what do you think, who’s a better creation of Allah’s, woman or man?" Mad winked at me, suggesting he knew the answer and was just testing the old man."Woman, my boy. He managed to make woman much more accomplished and better-looking than man. After all, He created Adam first. And whenever you do something for the first time,my boy, you’re bound to make mistakes. You end up with some bits that hang out, some that are protruding, superfluous or missing…You’re bound to do a better job the second time around, especially if you’re God. So it’s obvious that Eve, as His second attempt at creating a human being, has turned out a much better specimen.”