Reporting to you from Yambio, Western Equatoria state, South Sudan, Africa … On a hot Thursday afternoon, we drove east from the capital city of Yambio, Western Equatoria state in South Sudan. I sat with two officials of the state Ministry of Agriculture, an official from the state Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and two persons from one of our U.S. government implementing partners. The road, a bed of red sandy soil and gravel, wound through the bush. We were in the Greenbelt, so called because of the rainfall here for seven to eight months of the year and the relative productivity of the land to grow nearly any kind of crop. However, most of the landscape was native vegetation, an amazing collection of trees, undergrowth and grass. This was truly the bush.

Reporting to you from Juba, South Sudan, Africa … One realization of my assignment is the number of aid organizations working here in this new country. They may be divided into three groups.

Reporting to you from Eastern Equatoria state, South Sudan, Africa … I am located in Torit, the capital of Eastern Equatoria state, for the third time in three months. I spend nearly every day working with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Cooperatives and Rural Development.

Reporting to you from Central Equatoria State, South Sudan Africa … I have just returned from Morobo County, in the Central Equatoria state of South Sudan. It is in the Greenbelt, which is so named because of the usual rainfall, beginning in March and ending about October. As of this writing we are in the dry season, November through February.

Reporting to you from South Sudan, Africa … I am in Yambio, the capital city of Western Equatoria state. South Sudan, the 54th country in Africa and the newest country of the world, is divided into 10 states. I am assigned to three of them: the three southern states of Eastern, Central and Western Equatoria.

Greetings from Africa. I have been assigned to South Sudan for six months. I will be working in the three Equatoria states in South Sudan November 2011 through mid-May 2012. I am assigned to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), currently one of the largest U.S. government development efforts in Africa. I am here as part of the Civilian Response Corps as an active member.

October 1, 2011, marked the 10-year anniversary of our presence in Afghanistan. The history of our presence, both military and civilian, will be written for decades to come.

At this writing, the harvest season is here. The autumn temperatures and the cloudy days with slow drawn-out rains are right on schedule. I am home in Alma, Michigan, corn and soybean country, where harvest is underway. Most of the soybeans are harvested. Combines are working in corn fields.

In March of 2011, at 0200 hours (2 a.m.), I stood at a forward operating base near Mosul, Iraq, with about two dozen soldiers. We lined up, adjusted our Kevlar vests and helmets, our fragmentary eye protection and noise headsets, and in the flurry of dust, the womp-womp of rotors and the darkness of night, we boarded a CH-47 Chinook helicopter.

In the nearly 20 years of writing this column, I often have written about science and art: what they are to me and how we might describe their role in our public space. For instance, I have written that science is a methodological approach of testing ideas or premises. We start with little knowledge and use inductive reasoning and empirical evidence to arrive at understanding.