An active correspondent, Tucker crisscrossed the continent, filing stories about the uprisings in the Congo, the civil war in Sierra Leone, and the postgenocidal conflict in Rwanda. At home in Harare, Vita was nursing Chipo back to health. Soon she and Tucker decided to alter their lives forever by adopting Chipo. That decision challenged an unspoken social norm: that foreigners should never adopt Zimbabwean children.

As if their situation wasn't tenuous enough, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was stirring up national fervor against foreigners, especially journalists, abroad and at home. At its peak, his antagonizing branded all foreign journalists personae non gratae. For Tucker, the only full-time American correspondent in Zimbabwe, the declaration was a direct threat to his life and his wife's safety, and an ultimatum to their decision to adopt their only daughter.