I'm swimming in work but treading water as best I can. I can't wait to leave for Madrid but in the meantime I'm going to pump out seven reports and annexes, probably 1500 pages of hard-hitting sociological analysis! BOOM! But I'm telling the whole thing out of order....
Does that sound salacious? Well they are some enormous honking carrots: How about a foodie tour of Bogota to celebrate my new author website? This is from February, when Ali and Shane came for a great visit. Though I knew these tours existed, and I'm not immune to the...
I promised to write about the peace talks this week, and I will. But not yet. There's some seriously unfinished business on my mind. Can someone tell me how we're still fighting these battles? Didn't the country just (more or less) finally admit it's alright to be...
Bogota has its share of problems. It's a big, noisy, gritty city with more inhabitants than it can reasonably handle. Unlike back home, demand for public transportation is enviably high: bus it and they will come. Supply is another story. Foto: Carlos Julio MartÃnez...
What a joy this week to head to Barranquilla for Carnaval with my best buds Shane and Ali. Barranquilla hosts the second largest Carnaval in the world, with Rio (natch) holding the top spot. I don't know... I can't quite imagine more feathers than what we saw:...
I bet that's not a headline you could have predicted. Me either! I was surprised to read a story about USAID outfitting city vultures with GPS and cameras to try to track urban dumping. Yes, really Knowing USAID as I do, I read between the lines of the story a lot of...
It strikes me that Villa de Leyva is the perfect little Colonial town for a lazy vacation. It's 3-4 hours' drive from Bogota, settled in a warm valley, full of restaurants and hotels, and very peaceful and safe. Oodles of stars become visible as night falls. There is...
Hmmm...
Some of the different ways I saw my mom during my time with her in Deer Trail: Motherly Mom. Looking at the three of us with pride, beaming, telling us in so many words what she thinks of us. Womanly Mom. A woman, almost unknown to me. Proud and grande-Dame-ish....
I read an old article by Oliver Sacks yesterday, about the Sabbath and keeping it holy. He was raised Orthodox in the Jewish faith and the Sabbath was really the Sabbath. In Washington DC I used to go to Shabbat dinner with Zahara and other friends and there was...