I remember the two-month old baby’s tiny body, pressing against my chest. A light drizzle that spring afternoon.

I recall the addled side glances others shot at me.  

There I was, less than half a mile from the small liberal arts American University in Bulgaria where I was dual-majoring in journalism and international relations and already immersed into a whole different world. A world of poverty, of struggle, of abuse, of shattered dreams and of dead hopes. The world of a 30-year old Roma woman, mother of three children under the age of 10 and the baby girl I cradled that day while accompanying her to the doctor’s office.   

Peacefully asleep in my arms, the baby was malnourished and ill. Stressed and fatigued, the mother did not have milk nor any money to buy baby formula. Both her husband and she were unemployed. She begged acquaintances and relatives for help.  For three months, I listened to her, I spent the weekends with her, I watch her lips pull in a shy smile when she talked about her children, I saw her eyes fill with tears when she did not know where the next meal was coming from.  

I watched and listened and nodded with empathy. I inhibited my urge to empty my wallet in her bony hands. I could not help her that way. The only thing I could do for her was to write her story. And I did. I wrote and deleted and rewrote a 5,000-word feature on her as the final assignment in a specialized writing class I took in my sophomore year. 

This final project prompted me to rethink my existence, to question what really pulled me into journalism. 

Three months later, the answer crystallized in my mind. I went into journalism because it shapes well-rounded people, just like a river smoothens the rough edges of the stones, rolling on its bed, to create perfect ovals.