Botswana, Beef, and Cowboys

Sher Hruska, vice president for academic affairs, will launch the NWC Spring Writers Series Tuesday, Jan. 24, with a reading and travelogue program from a journal she kept on a recent trip to Africa.

Her presentation, which begins at 7:30 p.m. in Room 70 of the Fagerberg Building, follows a trek Hruska made through South Africa, Namibia and Botswana earlier this year. She’ll accompany her narrative with photography taken during the journey, offering what she calls “memorable moments with the people and animals of those lands.”

Hruska traveled mostly through remote and rural areas, accompanying her son, Tracy, who had just finished his research on the rhinoceros populations and habitat in those regions.

“Botswana is the Wyoming of Africa,” Hruska discovered. “Lots of beef and cowboys. And like Wyoming, this country also struggles with the often conflicting desires for development and protection of a precious way of life.” she said.

In all three countries she visited, Hruska found incredible openness and ever-present risks. “I came away with appreciation for the people we met and the complex challenges” they face in these new, yet surprisingly stable, democracies located in the southern most tip of the continent.

Hruska’s presentation is sponsored by the Northwest College Writers Series, in cooperation with the NWC Multicultural Series. Tom Rea, author of “Bone Wars: The Excavation and Celebrity of Andrew Carnegie's Dinosaur” will be the guest writer at the next Writers series program Feb. 13.