On a humid day in mid-June, Jessica Colby is hunched over a collection of bright green stems, each one waving a leaf or two, each one a tiny banner of hope. It’s almost noon, and the temperatures in the greenhouses at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst are climbing. Colby pushes her hair off her damp brow and, wielding a small blade, gently scrapes the outer layer from the stem she is holding, before dipping it in rooting powder and adding it to the lineup of cuttings anchored before her in a moistened block of foam. The leafy stems march in straight rows across the table, like a band of miniature soldiers fighting for a cause.

Blood and water. It was the summer of 2013, and the words ricocheted through press accounts, as tensions in Africa’s Nile Basin reached an all-time high and the media trumpeted the possibility of war. For generations, conflict had been brewing along the Nile, where 11 countries—more than 400 million people—depend on the world’s longest river for drinking water, electricity, irrigation, and transportation.

In the basement of the American Repertory Theater, Matt Gould (’01) is pulling on his favorite leather boots—the ones with the soles that can really hammer out the sound. Outside, the February night in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is bitterly cold, with wind chills pushing temperatures into the single digits. But in Gould’s tiny, brightly lit dressing room, the radiators are on overdrive.

Ha Jin remembers the flames, the piles of books burning in the night. And he remembers the smoldering ash in the yard the next morning—nothing more was left of the volumes that once lined his father’s shelves. “It was a common sight,” says Jin, who was 10 years old when the Cultural Revolution swept through his native China. The fires always started the same way—with a knock on the door. “And then the Red Guard demanded that you surrender all your books, and everything was hauled out and burned.”

The man in the black Cadillac showed up late in the summer of 1973. Plenty of people had seen him, driving back and forth along Bay Road, the ribbon of pavement that winds around the edge of New Hampshire’s Great Bay between Durham and Newmarket. He was knocking on doors as he went, talking to property owners one by one. He wanted to buy land, he told them. For a bird sanctuary. For a family estate. For a golf course. People were mystified. Rumor had it there was money to be made. Lots of it.

In the spring of 2012, when Ellen Paquette ’72 arrived in Tunis, a city of white buildings set against a glittering Mediterranean Sea, she was eager to get to work. This was something she was good at—starting a new job in a foreign country. Something she’d done many times during her nearly 40 years in the Peace Corps. This time, Paquette had been appointed country director for Tunisia, where the program was reopening after 15 years, and she was hopeful about the work ahead as she settled into her office in the capital city.

Jonathan Bird ’02G has learned a thing or two during his career as an underwater cinematographer—like never snorkel with a bunch of gray reef sharks, who will mistake you for bait as you float on the surface. Instead, don your diving gear and swim among the shadowy fish, 200 feet down . . .

Rob Dixon ’83 had a hard time getting his bearings after the shooting. He was 11 years old, and the guys who showed up that afternoon in his Dorchester, Mass., neighborhood came to his house first. When no one answered the door, they went across the street and found his best friend, George. Their plan was simple: they’d steal some cash from the local convenience store; George, the youngest, would be the lookout. Then they’d all share in the take. The robbery was over in a flash.