It’s Thanksgiving week in the United States. This is the second most widely celebrated holiday of the year here, after Christmas. Nearly everything will be closed Thursday, and—except for retail—also on Friday. I’ll be away for the holiday, though not traveling far this time.

Washington will be quiet all week. The House and Senate are out of session. I don’t see any Latin America-related events happening here during this truncated week.

It’s a week to focus on writing and research. We’ve got three drafts in semi-written state right now: a memo explaining what happened last week with Colombia’s post-conflict transitional justice system; a memo about the relevance of the border wall prototypes under construction in San Diego, California; and a big, slow-moving overview of Colombia’s post-conflict challenges.

I hope to finish at least two of those this week, and make progress on the third.

Then on Sunday, a few of us will be getting on a plane for McAllen, Texas. We’ll be spending the first three days of the week doing some research in the Rio Grande Valley sector of the U.S.-Mexico border.