About Bee Bloeser

Ten-year-old Bee Bloeser, in small-town Oklahoma, dreamed of going to Africa to live the life she saw in medical missionaries’ filmstrips. Twenty years later she followed her husband to Africa in the campaign to wipe out smallpox. The warmth of the people, rhythms of tribal music and visits with a princess in a medieval palace delighted her. But she learned hard facts of women hidden behind walls, tribal conflict, and a heartbreaking humanitarian crisis unknown to the outside world. A violent dictatorship caused her family to live on constant vigil.

About the Book

VACCINES & BAYONETS:

Fighting Smallpox in Africa amid Tribalism, Terror and the Cold War

VACCINES & BAYONETS Fighting Smallpox in Africa amid Tribalism, Terror and the Cold War book cover

A different virus. A different pandemic. Countries on opposite sides of an ideological divide cooperate to rid the world of a disease.

With wide-eyed ideals and two young children, Bee eagerly follows her husband to Africa where he helps eradicate smallpox. What Bee encounters deepens her love for Africa, while it erodes her naïveté. She pushes danger and isolation to the back of her mind, keeping cryptic notes and hiding them in the sock drawer. Be among the first to read her eye-opening memoir.

Now Available as an Audiobook!

Praise for

Vaccines and Bayonets

Sasha Polakow-SuranskyEditor, Foreign Policy magazine

“At a time when vaccines are front-page news and a deadly pandemic is raging across the globe, Bloeser’s memoir makes for riveting reading. . .a captivating family history and a reminder of how public health campaigns are still inextricably intertwined with politics. . .”

Adam RobertsCorrespondent, The Economist

“. . .a closely observed memoir. . .historically important. . .most remarkable when it recounts living in tropical, isolated and unfortunate Equatorial Guinea. . . sympathetic, vividly told and useful record of an unusually sombre moment in West African history.”