Nicole Abadie

It's interesting.

We see it through Ellie's eyes.

And from what he'd been led to believe,

by the Colonel who sent him there, it was some major terrorist camp.

But in fact, it becomes clear to him that it is just a refugee camp.

And in fact, that it's really quite pathetic.

One of the things that he notices, that Ellie notices, is failed kitchen gardens.

And I think that really introduces a note of pathos that gives you a real sense of what this camp is really like.

It's just people whose homes have been destroyed.

trying to eke out and living for themselves and their families.

The colonel had told Ellie before he went in there that this was a camp at the end of the world, a hideout for some of the worst human scum.

So that's what his expectations are.

And those expectations are, of course, completely overturned when, as you say, he meets Momo and develops a relationship with him.

The modules that you're talking about that he's learned in his cultural sensitivity course include ones on basic good manners with tribals.

That's one unit that he studies.

And another is eat and drink with the enemy.

So he is trying to draw on what he's learned in these modules and to apply that on the ground.

And as you say, there's a big difference between what he's been taught and what the American perceptions are and what life actually is like and what the people are actually like.

She works with USAID and she is there specifically to work with families who've been affected by bombing raids and who are suffering from PTSD.

But more specifically, as she tells Momo, she's doing a PhD on, and I'm using the air quotes now as well, the teenage Muslim mind.