Of the thousands of people witnessing the “yellow vest” protests in Paris over the past few weeks, three young men have had a decidedly different perspective.

Cameras in hand, they have had great fun at the demonstrations, exchanging knowing looks, smiles and jokes whenever they crossed paths. Every once in a while, a painful memory or a philosophical reflection would pierce through the merriment. Then the good humor would return.

They are Syrians who have seen friends and loved ones die and their hometowns reduced to rubble. Having escaped war, Abdulmonam Eassa, Sameer Al-Doumy and Zakaria Abdelkafi are now covering violence in a European capital. With a smile.

Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Take a deadly contagious disease that spreads on contact. Drop it into an area surrounded by jungle, where armed groups vie for control over remote corners. Add a population exhausted by decades of conflict, weary of outsiders and suspicious of Westerners clad in protective suits erecting camps to treat this illness, camps from which their loved ones often don’t come out alive.