The Birth Whisperers of Timor-Leste
Rosa Bana (right), known locally as “Mana Rosa,” aims to provide adequate health care to pregnant women, such as Elizabeth Lasi (left), in Kutete and the nearby region…
Author: Karen Coates
South Sudanese Refugees and the Taste of Displacement
Katarin Ladu is tall and thin, with short, curled hair and a face wrinkled by sunshine, age, and worry. She wears a beaded necklace, a mismatched pair of…
Will GMOs Put an End to Hunger? Ask the Hungry
When it comes to food, few topics are as contentious and polarizing as genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Hyperbole is rampant in this debate. GMOs are everything we…
Hmong Gardeners in America’s Dairyland
A garden isn’t just a patch of dirt where we plant vegetables, herbs, and flowers. A garden is a chronicle of culture. What we choose to grow often…
Lao Camp Food (Part 2)
This is the second installment of a food journal I kept during several days in February camping with a bomb clearance team in Laos. If you missed my…
Lao Camp Food (Part 1)
I recently spent several days camping with a bomb clearance team in southern Laos. Quick history: Laos, per capita, is the most heavily bombed country on Earth. Between…
The Myth of the Virgin Rainforest
The little village of Pa Lungan sits in a grassy clearing, high in the hills of Malaysian Borneo, in a region called the Kelabit Highlands. The people here—a…
Coffee To Go
For the last couple of months, my husband Jerry and I have been traveling across Southeast Asia with a coffee maker. It’s a little lightweight Black & Decker…
The Great Chocolate Migration
Last fall, I was sipping Mexican chocolate at a chic little Singapore café. It was a local branch of a New York–based chain, which was started in Israel…