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 and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) 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.