Bee: Writer, Speaker

Bee Bloeser had a childhood dream to live an “exotic” life in a jungle hut in Africa. Her grown-up reality? In addition to the many things she still loves about Africa, she encountered tribal pogroms, Cold War tensions and a bloodthirsty dictator. Her six years in the Arabian desert were tame by comparison.

Sensitive to social injustice, poverty and violence she recorded details and asked questions. The answers made possible her forthcoming historical memoir, VACCINES & BAYONETS: Fighting Smallpox in Africa amid Tribalism, Terror and the Cold War.

Bee has spent time with a princess behind the mud walls of a medieval palace harem and lived on a sinister equatorial island where the president burned all the boats to prevent escape.

These adventures, in addition to years with Native American communities, came as she followed her late husband in his work to eradicate smallpox and other work in public health.

After her own career as a speech-language pathologist, Bee turned to writing and public speaking about her eye-opening and harrowing experiences in Africa during the historic achievement of wiping smallpox from the face of the earth.

She is a member of the United Nations Association, USAID Alumni Association, P.E.O., a Philanthropic Education Organization, and multiple writers’ groups. She serves on the board of Tucson Tellers of Tales.