After the first couple of months in Sarajevo, Emily finally got the hang of living with intermittent electricity, learned how to cook on propane burners, that she needed to wear her down coat with four layers of quilts to bed. But what she couldn't get used to was the unpredictability, the way you never knew when the electricity would cut out, or how long it would last.

Her days at the UN were long, but at least the compound always had electricity and a phone line out. Generators backed up what the locals couldn't, and through some intricate wiring Emily didn't quite understand, she could call her friends and family for the price of a long-distance call originating in New York.

The job was temporary‹nine months as a UN Volunteer‹and the qualifications so basic (a master's degree and the ability to drive manual) that Emily could hardly believe they'd taken her. She'd arrived three months after 9/11, right as the government was shipping six Algerians to Guantanamo Bay, then spent four months as a glorified office assistant before receiving her first real assignment: to find the women from the Srebrenica massacre. If she did a good enough job, her boss told her, he might just be able to move her into a more permanent position. But Willem was so busy hitting on her Argentinean coworker, Emily complained to her friends, that he was barely in the office, much less any help.

Her friends listened with sympathy; they had their own stories of UN affairs and sexual harassment. It came with the territory, Raj said, of working for an agency where spouses were left behind on a regular basis.

Amanda suggested Emily try her international women's club. "I'd be surprised if a philanthropic organization hadn't already established ties."

But when Emily met with them the following week, she found the group to be almost as oppressive as the living room in which she sat. Around her, women discussed vacation plans over cappuccinos and pastries served by the Austrian ambassador's wife. Outside, the day sparkled; inside, Emily struggled to breathe against the cloying clash of perfume. It wasn't until she was getting ready to leave that someone said Yes, they'd heard the Srebrenica women were living in the area. But like the UN, they had no way of finding them.