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“Tada”

In one of my mother’s photo albums there is a picture of a young family. Her father, Tada, is too big for his suit and his hands are too big for his body. Her mother, Nana, is heavy-set and sturdy. She married my grandfather when she was 15 years old. And the children look like, […]

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AU-Pulitzer Center International Reporting Fellowship

WASHINGTON, DC, 5 March 2021 — Students at American University should seize this opportunity to join the ranks of the young men and women traveling the world, learning, embracing and changing the world. You can find the application here: 2021 application

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Keep the Fingernails!

WASLALA, Nicaragua — Miami Herald photographer Murry Sill and I are hanging around Waslala waiting for this Sandinista Army offensive to happen. There isn’t a hell of a lot to do in Waslala, which is less a town than just a bunch of houses lined up on both sides of a muddy mountain road. It’s […]

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The Mills

From our vantage point in our 1956 Plymouth, the mills were black monsters, dinosaurs lounging along both sides of the river, coughing smoke and flames. My memories of them, and of this period of life with my family, are mostly black and white, with shades of gray in between. Almost never in color. The river […]

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The Simón Bolívar Battalion

Excerpted from the memoir sub-titled, “A True Story of War, Love and Rock & Roll” Lt. Francisco Noel Talavera (L) is a 19-year-old from the northern mountain city of Jinotega. He has a bad complexion and the habit of spitting through the gap in his two front teeth. He also happens to be the commander of […]

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THIS is a patriot

WASHINGTON, DC, 16 January 2021 — We hear the word, “patriot,” bantered around so much these days that it deserves some clarification. So, I present you the man in this picture. He responded to the calls of a true president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to defend his country, the United States of America. This man did […]

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