Dr. Maureen McCue on Health and Life in Haiti

Anchee Min on life in communist China, Pearl S. Buck....and intestinal parasites

Anchee Min is the bestselling author of Red Azalea, a memoir about her life growing up in Communist China. Her books have been praised for their "raw, sharp language and historical accuracy," and the New York Times has called her "a wild, passionate and fearless writer."

On April 26, she spoke at Prairie Lights with passion about her childhood of deprivation and starvation: winters when she had to beat her socks to unfreeze them, her case of tapeworms, and the sacrifices of her mother. She told us about her new book, Pearl of China, a historical novel about the writer Pearl S. Buck.

Anchee Min's talk was part of Prairie InSight, a collaboration between Prairie Lights Bookstore and International Programs at the University of Iowa.

Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe and the Legacy of Colonialism as told by a Madhinga Bucket Boy

Philemon Matibe, author of Madhinga Bucket Boy, is an extraordinary and charismatic writer, businessman, farmer and political exile from Zimbabwe. His life spans colonial Rhodesia, the revolution and the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. He was forced to flee Zimbabwe when he challenged Mugabe's political party.

Madhinga Bucket Boy is unlike any other memoir to come out of Africa in recent years. It is not the story of a soldier-child, a ghetto street survivor, or a white colonialist rising above (or wallowing in) an apartheid-like regime. It is a coming-of-age story written by a black African born in Rhodesia, himself a "product of excessive motorcycle speed, alcohol, and raw tribal passion between two native lovers."

At a live event at Prairie Lights Bookstore, he told us about the purchase of African diamond mines by Cecil John Rhodes, creating the colonial Rhodesia, life under segregationist policies as a child, and his political awakening and life as a refugee. An incredible storyteller, he tells a vivid story about life as a black person in Rhodesia; forced to live downwind from the white people's outhouses, when revolutionaries were forced to empty white families' chamber pots and referred to as "Madhinga Bucket Boys."

Philemon Matibe was born in Zimbabwe and is an agriculturalist. He writes African folktales, is a helicopter pilot, coffee roaster and agro-business entrepreneur. He is a member of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, Indian Association of Agricultural Professionals and The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. Philemon was educated in Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, and is currently studying for a degree in Intelligence Studies in the USA. Philemon has two children and lives in exile in the USA.

Matibe spoke in March 2010 at Prairie InSight, a collaboration between Prairie Lights Bookstore and the University of Iowa International Programs.

Creating a Sustainable Local Food System

I spoke with Jason Grimm, the Food System Planner for Iowa Valley Resource Conservation and Development, about a plan to develop Johnson and Linn County's local food system.

Rural Development and Cultural Exchange in India.....Jay Seghal and Sindhu Suresh

The Institute of Rural Research and Development (IRRD) is an award-winning organization that addresses rural development in India. Their water management projects have won them a UNESCO award four years in a row, and they count Ashoka and the Clinton Global Initiative among their many supporters.

I spoke with Jay Seghal of the Seghal Foundation, IRRD's parent organization, about their water management projects in a cluster of 460 rural villages in northern India and their integrative approach that addresses education, health, women's rights, village governance and empowerment. Their model village is a place where other village leaders can come and see workable projects that can improve their quality of life.

Check out this video on IRRAD's work:


Second, I spoke with Ms. Sindhu Suresh, who is the Administrative Assistant of the UI Semester in South India program and Program Coordinator of Vivekananda Institute of Indian Studies.

The University of Iowa Semester in South India study abroad program was developed in 1998 in collaboration with the UI Office for Study Abroad and UI South Asian Studies Program faculty. Sindhu Suresh, Administrative Assistant, became involved in the program in 2008 when the University of Iowa partnered with the Swami Vivekananda Institute for Indian Studies (SVIIS), an undertaking of the Swami Vivekananda Institute for Youth Movement.

The Swami Vivekananda Institute for Youth Movement (SVYM) was created in 1984 by a group of young medical students led by Dr.R.Balasubramaniam at the Mysore Medical College who endeavored to make a positive impact on the lives of the poor & marginalized through institution-based and community based health and education projects. Over the years, the group continued creating new health and educational initiatives focusing on Child Rights & Education, Gender Issues & Women's Empowerment, Tribal Development, Public Health and Rural Healthcare, HIV/AIDS Awareness, Eye Car, Tuberculosis Control and more.

The Crisis of Higher Education...a conversation with UC Berkeley professor Ananya Roy

Last year, protests at UC Berkeley nearly erupted into violence. In the midst of the state’s now infamous budget crisis, Gov. Schwarzeneger cut UC’s state allocation 20% - which would cut 2000 staff positions and mandate 4-10% salary cuts in furloughs, and UC President Yudof proposed that student fees be raised 32%. Tens of thousands of students were excluded from admission at UC, Cal State and community colleges this year.

On March 4, 2010, thousands of students and faculty gathered in Sacramento "to insist that those who have benefited from public education cannot now pull the ladder up after themselves."

Prof. Roy, a very popular professor at Berkeley, became an unofficial spokesperson for the movement. She argues that this country's budget priorities are short-sighted, and today's students are facing lives in which, burdened by debt, they are less optimistic about their future than their parents were.

Ananya Roy is Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches in the fields of urban studies and international development. She also serves as Education Director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies and as co-Director of the Global Metropolitan Studies Center. From 2005 to 2009 Roy served as Associate Dean of International and Area Studies.

November 8, 2009....Torture and War with Ret. Major General Paul Eaton

Ret. Major General Paul Eaton and I spoke about torture, Iraq, Afghanistan and the ethics of warfare.

More information coming soon.