| Worthy of James Bond
Political upheaval, evacuations, threats, and developing country realities such as intermittent electricity and water, pitted unpaved roads, and chaotic traffic, are all just part of a day’s job for four UI ag alums serving abroad with the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). Lee Schatz, right, and Australia's Trevor Flugge, coalition leaders to help rebuild Iraq's Department of Agriculture, chat in Iraq wheat field. All four can tell some hair-raising stories, but probably none is quite as dramatic as Lee Schatz’s Iranian hostage near-miss. He believes one reason he was selected for the USDA’s daunting Baghdad job was his experience in Iran 24 years ago when he watched, and for several days reported from his office near the U.S. Embassy, as Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, detaining more than 50 American hostages for what would be 444 days. For 79 days Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor hid Schatz and five other Americans until his staff and the CIA succeeded in sneaking them out to the safety of Canada via bogus Canadian passports. But such threats don’t deter Schatz or his FAS colleagues. “For the most part we know what we can or can’t do to keep ourselves safe,” says Schatz. “That was an extraordinary situation. So is what Lloyd (Harbert) is doing in Baghdad. It is volatile and no one can predict what will happen.” Idaho alums Fred
Kessel and Kent Sisson report from Africa and Indonesia And Kent Sisson’s family returned home from Jakarta, shortly after the 9/11 disaster, due to local threats, leaving him there on his own for nine months. Still, both Kessel ’81, ’84, reared in Moscow, and Wendell-born Sisson ’78, view driving on back country roads in developing nations as their most alarming challenge. “Fear of a car accident was worse” than ongoing anti-American demonstrations at the embassy, says Sisson. Kessel agrees. “The most dangerous thing I ever do in Africa is travel by road. It is often very chaotic. Vehicles are poorly maintained; same for the roads. In Lagos, with 10 million people, there’s not a working traffic light.” Both men must frequent back roads trying to assemble commodity reports, which in developed countries are available from a central office. Despite the hardships, Kessel, his wife Ann, and son William, 17, liked life in Africa, where they lived nine years. Always, Kessel says, “I have a standby big diesel generator because power goes out on a regular basis. Some places we had to have water trucked in because local water failed. Phones are notoriously bad in East Africa. It is oftentimes easier to call the United States than across town to my wife.” Is it worth it?
Kessel is proud that U.S. wheat exports to Nigeria have grown from 300,000 tons annually to two million tons last year. And he is proud of his influence in helping Kenyan and other African scientists “understand modern science biotechnology,” so they are even developing their own programs in government research institutes and universities. Sisson is proud of helping increase U.S. product exports to Indonesia to nearly $1 billion in recent years, including markets for Idaho’s peas, lentils, wheat, and frozen potato products. But even more satisfying, personally, is a school feeding program he helped build, resulting in several million Indonesian children getting free milk and wheat biscuits, AND an education. “The whole concept is to encourage education. In poor communities where parents don’t consider education a priority,” Sisson said, “they’ll send their children to school if they know their kids can get nourishment. That is worth a lot.” -- Mary Ann Reese © 2003 University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. |
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Threats,
upheavals just “part of a day’s job” for UI alums
with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service
