Culture: Page 277

The Road to Mother Coffee

In Ethiopia, coffee trails open up Kafa Biosphere Reserve to tourists

Culture

Minutes after walking away from the oldest coffee tree in the world, Silje Heyland, a German college student studying fair-trade coffee practices in Ethiopia, had a sudden urge to go back. “Perhaps we can eat lunch under the tree,” she suggested. The rest of our expedition party — wet, tired, muddy, hungry — looked at her with unsympathetic eyes and decided it would be better to eat lunch at a nearby village, where there were primitive huts to duck into for shelter against the afternoon thunderstorm. Continue reading →

Will Mali Bounce Back?

A Eugene Peace Corp volunteer is evacuated to safety

Culture

At first, it seemed possible that what started as a military mutiny on March 22 might simply blow over. After a few days of sheltering in my apartment, I emerged to find Bamako, the capital of the West African nation of Mali, just as I had left it. Besides an underlying uncertainty over just exactly how Mali’s government would shape out, the mood was bright and the city would be as colorful as always. At work, a USAID youth-development project, most of my colleagues insisted the coup could be a positive step for Mali. Continue reading →

Wildin’ Out: 16 Tons Celebrate Its 2nd Year with Yeasty Flavor

Culture

What is it about Northwest beer that makes the sun so freaking hot? Not that it isn't the most deliciously hoppy, amazingly bitter, stupidly strong beer in the land, but it sure is thick. It's really difficult to imagine gulping down a heady IPA after eating a delicate piece of white fish, for example, or a meal-in-a-bottle stout alongside an expensive cheese plate, but the good news is that heavy dark brews aren't all the Northwest has to offer. Continue reading →

Birds of a Feather

On the hunt for Eugene’s (not so) wild turkeys

Culture

No less an enlightened American than Benjamin Franklin was royally pissed that the U.S. Congress, after six long years of deliberation, declared our national bird to be the bald eagle. Franklin, inventor of bifocals and the lightning rod, suggested a bird of a different feather altogether. In place of the dishonest, lazy raptor of “bad moral character” that is the bald eagle, this Founding Father suggested a fowl he deemed far less foul — the wild turkey. Continue reading →