Summer 2020
Stepping up her game
Washington State University alumna and assistant professor Sylvia Amulo pursues research on antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases in her home country of Kenya. » More ...
Africa
Winter 2019
Gallery: Gardens in Burundi
Schoolchildren in the small, war-torn African nation of Burundi are planting gardens and learning other skills, working with Washington State University Extension and 4-H partners.
Take a look at some of their successful efforts…
Read more in “Gardens of hope in Burundi”
Summer 2017
Old remedy
Veterinarians use an old remedy to eliminate the deadliest infectious disease known to humanity. Rabies.
It was the season for guavas. Their sweet musky fragrance drifted through the morning air and into the open window of seven-year-old Sharon Korir, beckoning her outside to play.
The year was 2003, the day after Christmas. As was customary, Sharon had traveled with her parents to their home village in rural Kenya for the holiday. When it came time to return to Nairobi, the doting grandparents asked Sharon to spend an extra day.
The rains had passed and that day arrived with welcome blue skies. Sharon and her friends … » More …
Spring 2015
We’re one big counterculture
Back in the early 1970s, Barry Hewlett was part of the whole counterculture thing. He designed his own major at California State University, Chico—sociology, anthropology, and psychology—and set off after graduation for Europe. By the time he got to Greece, he was bored.
“I thought, ‘This is so familiar to me,’” recalls Hewlett, now a Washington State University anthropology professor.
Other people his age and temperament were heading to India. Not wanting to follow the crowd, “I went the other way, directly south,” he says, “and there were no other European folks with me.”
He ended up in central Africa, encountering hunter-gatherers for the first … » More …
Spring 2014
New & noteworthy
Operation Cody: An Undercover Investigation of Illegal Wildlife Trafficking in Washington State
Todd A. Vandivert ’79
2013
Undercover game wardens Todd Vandivert and Jennifer Maurstad posed as husband and wife businesspeople in 2010 to bring down commercial poachers and black market dealers in wildlife parts. This first person account by former Washington State Fish and Wildlife Detective Vandivert tells of their success as they risked their lives to reduce wildlife destruction in the Pacific Northwest.
Isaiah Shembe’s Prophetic Uhlanga
Joel E. Tishken
Peter Lang Publishing, 2013
During South Africa’s colonial era, Zulu Zionist prophet Isaiah Shembe and his Nazareth Baptist Church congregants saw … » More …
Summer 2013
Video: On the edge of turmoil
Peter Chilson, a Washington State University professor of English, estimates he has spent six years of his life in Mali and the Sahel region of Africa. He discusses his journey there at the time of last spring’s coup.
» More ...Summer 2013
Waiting for the Rain
In the impenetrable Dogon highlands of Mali, the storm of war is coming.
An excerpt from We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from the Lost Country of Mali
Washington State University English Professor Peter Chilson happened to be in Mali in March 2012 when a military coup ended the country’s two decades as a model democracy. Within days, the Malian army in the troublesome northern part of the country collapsed. As a result, Tuareg and Islamist fighters claimed 60 percent of the country, creating a safe haven for al Qaeda and other Islamist forces and threatening West African stability and European security.
… » More …
Spring 2012
Lessons from the Forest—The anthropology of childhood
Fresh out of college in 1971, with a little money saved up, Barry Hewlett bought a one-way ticket to Europe. He trekked around Europe for a while, but eventually started to get bored. He noticed many of his fellow youthful travelers were heading for India. So he headed south, for Africa.
He found a cargo boat that was going to Alexandria, Egypt, and booked passage. And kept going, up the Nile to Khartoum in Sudan. Along the way, he says, other travelers told him, you’ve got to see the pygmy people. So he made his way to Uganda to visit pygmies.
He didn’t stay long, … » More …
Winter 2006
Vicki Owens: Into Africa
Twenty-one years ago Vicki Owens stepped off an airplane into the hot air of Kampala, Uganda, thinking she had come for a brief stay, just long enough to help Christian missionary pastors start a primary school.
“I thought I’d do my little thing for humanity and then go home,” she says. It was her first time traveling overseas, and she really had no idea of what she would face in this country in the center of Africa.
Owens, who admits she was naïve to the culture, dangers, and challenges of living in a place like Uganda, had arrived two months after one military coup and … » More …
Spring 2007
A week in Malawi
In a country wracked with poverty, AIDS, and overpopulation, WSU's president finds vitality and hope.
» More ...