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Monthly Archives: February 2015

Going Home

EL PASO — My last night in El Paso. A dog barks forlornly, continuously, into the night. I am tempted to go outside and bark back, to let him know he is not alone. I hear the dog and the whispering howl of cars passing down Interstate 10. I am looking towards a white stucco wall, […]

Centro Santa Catalina

JUAREZ — South of the city the trash fires burn, sending a rolling plume of black smoke towards the sky. The Centro Santa Catalina is a compound in a very poor neighborhood that encloses several buildings including a church, a school and the workshop. In the organization’s words, “We are a faith based community founded […]

Periphery

EL PASO — The border is a fact of life here. There is no politics in that statement, no right or wrong. Whether you think the border should be torn down entirely or made an impenetrable wall, it exists here in El Paso in a way I have seen nowhere else. Years ago, when I […]

Crossing and Moving

EL PASO–About a year ago, give or take a week or three, I was in San Salvador and had just found out my wife had been offered a job with the Foreign Service. This meant that the month after my return from Central America would be a blur of moving, packing and goodbyes ending with a […]

Portraits of Grace, House of Hope

To see a digital preview and to buy the book Portraits of Grace, House of Hope, click on this link:  http://www.blurb.com/books/5960660-portraits-of-grace-house-of-hope# ARLINGTON–I first saw Casa Esperanza in the fall of 2006. I spent no more than an hour there, on my way to somewhere else, but it remained etched in my memory. My thoughts would […]