On his first journey to Central Asia in 1994, straightaway the author realized how effectively he has been brainwashed; not only as a child, but even today as an adult. His account of the Cold War documents this brainwashing, as a child growing up under capitalism and then later in life living among those who grew up under communism.

Through his lifetime work as a public health epidemiologist in Africa and Asia, the author presents how people really live; what they are really like. While searching for the world’s last remaining Smallpox, you will meet three inspiring individuals in the remote savannah bush of southwestern Ethiopia, and later you will experience nomad hospitality in the barren thornbush desert of Somalia. His journey in Tanzania challenges the West on just who is developing whom? In Sierra Leone you will experience everyday hardships which a leisure culture could never imagine. In the Caucasus region you will observe how those far-removed view a US presidential election. In Palestine you will witness the marginalized abused by the marginalized ¡Apaga la luz! reveals genuine compassion in rural Mexico.

Finally, as you revisit his homeland, you will experience the author’s most severe lifetime culture shock.