I’m back from Havana. This is the second time I’ve participated in an annual “series of conversations” between U.S. and Cuban scholars and diplomats—the last time was 2013. It was an honor to be on the list of invited Americans, most of whom—unlike me—are Cuba specialists. It was a lot of panels, and I learned […]
Read MoreGood morning from Bogotá. It’s day seven of our visit, and we’ve finished the field-work portion of the trip. Nothing left but two days of meetings here with experts, activists, government and UN personnel. We spent Saturday through Tuesday in Colombia’s Pacific coast region, in the city of Buenaventura and then way up the […]
Read MoreHello from a plane returning from Tucson, where we spent all day yesterday and all morning today. It’s been busy: We went to Nogales, on the border, and spent time with the Kino Border Initiative (KBI), a Jesuit-run service and advocacy group that runs a shelter and dining facility on the Mexican side of the […]
Read MoreGood morning from Tucson, Arizona, where we arrived yesterday evening after a 220-mile drive through the desert from Yuma. We spent yesterday in Yuma and across the border in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora. We met with Mexican migration authorities (INM and Grupo Beta), with the Casa de Migrante migrant shelter in San Luis, with […]
Read MoreGood morning from Yuma, Arizona, where we landed at about 4:00PM yesterday. We’re about half an hour’s drive from the Mexico border right now, and about the same distance from Arizona’s border with California. With this visit, since 2011 we on WOLA’s Border and Migration Program have now worked in seven of the nine sectors […]
Read MoreThis building in central Barcelona was once the Hotel Continental, where George Orwell and his wife stayed when he wasn’t at the front, fighting with an anti-Stalinist Marxist militia during the Spanish Civil War. Here is where this scene in Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia played out, just as the pro-Soviet communists began their crackdown on all other […]
Read MoreHere’s a photo from my early morning jog along the Mediterranean. I’m here for the Latin American Studies Association’s annual conference. I like these gatherings, it’s good to see everyone from old professors to colleagues in the region. And it’s really important to find out about work being done by younger, newer (and less male […]
Read MoreThe Pan-American Health Organization headquarters, plunked down on a little-noticed spot near the State Department, is like a little slice of 1960 Brasília in the middle of Washington DC.
Read MoreAs a young man, illegitimately elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega overthrew dynastic dictator Anastasio Somoza. As an old man, Daniel resembles Tacho II more than he differs from him.
Read MoreI’ll be very hard to reach all week. (How to contact me) This is the last of four weeks in Colombia working on an evaluation team for a USAID project. I spent last week in Norte de Santander department, both the area near the Venezuela border and the Catatumbo region in the north. Now I’m somewhere […]
Read MoreHello from Cúcuta, Colombia, on the border with Venezuela. I had full days of meetings here yesterday and today to talk about the security situation and to evaluate a big USAID program operating in the surrounding department of Norte de Santander. Near the end of today, we took a 15-minute cab ride to the Simón Bolívar […]
Read MoreA day of meetings in the capital city doesn’t lend itself to magical photography. But here are a few quick snapshots.
Read MoreI’m just back from a quick 3-day trip to the very farthest southern part of Texas, known as the Rio Grande Valley region. This is by far the “busiest” of all sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border. It has the most undocumented migration, the largest number of Central American migrants seeking protection from violence, and (according […]
Read More…where I was 2 weekends ago, for the lock-screen image I snapped during my visit. (Original shot here)
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