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Our final days in Havana, Cuba

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Visit to Jose Martí's Natal Home Plus....

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In which we visit Havana's Jewish and Afro-Cuban communities, Hotel Nacional, and attend Danielle's performance at the Havana Jazz Festival.

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Three Museums, Constitution Plaza, and Interesting Chilean Drinks

On March 9-10, we made three short to very short visits to three more museums, the Gabriela Mistral Education Museum, which we visited on the afternoon after our visit to the Memory Museum, the Pre-Columbian Art museum, and Pablo Neruda’s House. Gabriela Mistral had an impressive career. Famous for her poetry, she became the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The…

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Decompressing with Tuti in Lujan de Cuyo

Tuti took us on a drive to the foothills of the Andes Mountains. I was surprised to find out that I took so few pictures when we visited Michael’s friend Tuti Berlak. Because I remember my time with her and her daughter Maya as one of my favorite parts of the trip. On the night before we flew to Mendoza from Buenos Aires. I finally took my braids down from the wedding hairdo. I had discovered,…

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ESMA Museum and Site of Memory

The Armed Forces of Argentina installed the first ESMA (School of Navy Mechanics) institutions in 1975. Despite the name, the military/security state always intended to use them as clandestine centers for the torture, interrogation, rape, illegal detention and murder of people whom they deemed not worthy of membership in society. They accomplished all these atrocities with the help of U.S. tax…

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Two days in Uruguay

L. Sandra, M. Gabi, Sandra’s niece visiting from Spain, R. Michael Michael met Sandra at his kibbutz, Kerem Shalom, in the 1980s. A dedicated socialist and an exile from the Uruguayan dictatorship she wanted to experience the socialism as practiced by the kibbutz movement in Israel. She later returned to Uruguay for various reasons and abhors the current state of Israeli politics. Our first day…

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Last Day in Bogotá

We were very fortunate to have a friend in Colombia, and unbelievably fortunate to have a friend like Camila

Good-bye to Camila Camila Reyes, founder of Resuena The picture I had of Camila for our final day together, didn’t really express who she was. So I took something from a webpage describing her what she does. Her current work is with Resuena, an organization “set out on a dream to expand the access to Nonviolent Communication in Colombia so that it becomes part of the day-to-day culture.” Below…

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Back to Bogotá

And a graffiti tour Returning to Camila’s place gave me a chance to rest my knee—which I did the day after a graffiti tour of Bogota with a young man from a tour company run by Camila’s friend.  His name was Camilo, and he had been an art student at one of the more than 100 universities in Bogota. He went all the way back to graffiti as a movement in the 1960s, to Cornbread, a young man who…

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The wedding!

And Raison D’etre of Our Trip Continue reading The wedding!

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Days in Medellin before the wedding

February 21-24 In English: every taste tells a story of our people Have I mentioned yet that Michael’s daughter Beth got married on February 24 in Medellin and that was the whole reason for our South America trip? Well, now you know. Michael and I left for Medellin on the morning of February 21. For lunch, we ate at Champi, a few blocks from the hotel, our first exposure to traditional…

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Good and Bad Fruit; Excellent people

February 20, 2024 The new fruit of the morning was pitaya, a mild flavored fruit. Wikipedia says it’s the same as dragon fruit, but most of the dragon fruit I’ve eaten is almost tasteless. (I had a yellow version at the hotel in Medellin on Feb. 22, and it was more flavorful.) After breakfast we went to the Colombia National Museum. I didn’t see any signs forbidding photos, but I furtively took…

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We’re in Bogota

And it’s as cool as I remember it. February 19, 2024 Michael and I got to the airport by three to catch a 5:00 flight yesterday morning, so we were tired when we arrived at our friend Camila’s beautiful apartment around 7:30 in the evening, but we enjoyed catching up a little. Camila generously offered us her bed and I slept better than I had in weeks. Next morning we ate a fruit called…

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Our Great Southern Civil Rights/Visiting Friends tour, Part VI

Ever wondered what you would have done during the past Civil Rights movement? You're doing it now.

Final Leg of the Journey: Florida, Georgia, Carolinas, Virginia, Home I’ll explain below. Our first stop on the way out of Florida. We knew that Jacksonville had plenty of Civil Rights history, but we basically did a drive-by shooting of the James Weldon Johnson Park. He was the author of Lift Every Voice and Sing. Below was the shot; I’m posting full size for ease of reading. Limited…

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Our Great Southern Civil Rights/Visiting Friends Tour IV

Fourth in my series of our 3 1/2 week Civil Rights history tour of the South

Montgomery and Selma Sculpture outside the Memorial for Peace and Justice. We could easily have spent a week in Montgomery, Alabama and the area around it, but we decided to focus on the Legacy Museum and the Memorial for Peace and Justice (aka “The Lynching Museum.”) Like others who have visited, we had trouble finding the words to describe the museum. The designers take you from the Middle…

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Our Great Southern Civil Rights/Visiting Friends Tour, Part IV

Our Great Southern Civil Rights/Visiting Friends Tour, Part IV

Atlanta—February 26, 2020 The most cynically overused quote by Martin Luther King. At the Martin Luther King National Historic Park in Atlanta. From Clemson, we drove to Atlanta, where we stayed with our friend Billie and spent a couple of dinners visiting with her daughter Stephanie. Billie, left, and Stephanie, right. They are the mother and sister, respectively, of our friend Jalil…

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Our Great Southern Civil Rights/Visiting Friends Tour, Part III

Our Great Southern Civil Rights/Visiting Friends Tour, Part III

We thought we were here for the friends but if you look past all the football paraphernalia stores, you see people working for civil rights and the restoration of history. From right to left: Our friends Peter (who wrote the definitive biography of Howard Thurman), Jane (a genetics nurse Ph.D.) Orrville Vernon Burton, who worked for voting rights in the 1960s and is having to do the same now 60…