(In celebration of mother's day, I am copying below a brief essay that I wrote a few years ago and based on events that occured in 1971. Sometimes, as in this example, what is fundamental is clear---a human right and a right action. My daughter Karin carries the middle name Lydia to honor the woman described).

As a Peace Corps volunteer I used to commute on horseback through tropical forests, in the shadow of a conical volcano, to the village of Las Pilas, Nicaragua, where I worked with rural women on health-education and community-development projects. Lydia—a small indigenous woman, sun-baked and wrinkled beyond her forty-seven years—taught me all about life in Las Pilas. I’d dismount at her home of gray wood planks and dried palm grass, and her children would take care of my horse while she brought me to meetings, introduced me to neighbors, and told me about the needs of the village. Lydia always wore a dress that was ragged but clean and freshly pressed with an iron heated over an open fire. Upon our return to her house, she’d serve me heaping portions of black bean rice, tortillas, and fried plantains and a tall glass of coffee made from beans roasted in a clay pot.

The town had no source of potable water, so villagers walked several miles each day down steep, muddy trails to the shores of Lake Nicaragua, where they bathed, washed their clothes on lava rocks, and filled tins with water for cooking and drinking. The burden of hauling water fell to the women and their barefoot children, who stayed home from school to attend to the chore. The water could be made safe only by boiling, which required the added labor of gathering wood, something few had time to do. I knew without asking that Lydia had boiled the water for the coffee she served me.

One afternoon, when I brought my horse to a halt at Lydia’s door, I found her standing at the center of a crowd of men and women, looking uncharacteristically agitated. She explained to me, with barely suppressed rage, that the patron who owned the land on both sides of the trail from Las Pilas to the lake had erected a wire fence across it, blocking the villagers’ path. To restore access to water, a young man from the village had cut the wires, and for this he had been arrested and taken to jail in the nearby town of Altagracia.

Lydia dug her sandaled feet into the dusty ground and turned to the crowd. “I may be poor and meant to be poor,” she said, her voice trembling, “but I am a human being, and I have my rights!” She waved her arm, and the crowd moved toward a dilapidated bus set to leave for Altagracia, where they would demand a hearing by the mayor.

By sundown the prisoner had been released, and access to water—such as it was—had been restored. Lydia showed me the power of even one small person taking a stand.

 Published in the Readers Write column of The Sun Magazine in response to the writing prompt “Fences,” Issue 404, August 2009

The red chair on the front cover of Lost and Found in Cuba has sat prominently in the living room of my psyche since I first saw the image among Shawn’s Davis’ photographs of Havana. For me, the weary plastic of the seat and the low angle at which Shawn shot the photo suggest a child's eye view  of the 1950s. I am transported back to when I was a mere child, Fidel still had a lot of hair, Sputnick was circling the earth (did it have a dog in it?), and Communism and Cuba were merged as twin evils in the national consciousness (a primitive idea that most of us—but apparently not our government-- have outgrown).

I was thrilled when Shawn agreed to let his photos be used in the cover design (created by Go! Creative in Kensington, Maryland). Four photos of his are used on the front and back covers, and I'd love to hear what associations readers have to his images. If you like the shock of gorgeous color in Red Chair, you might also love his Blue Car which hangs in our Yellow Springs home. 

Yesterday, at Shawn's house in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, DC, we celebrated our collaboration. His sister Sara took the picture of the two of us that appears below. Joining us for wine and watermelon and book signing were Shawn's partner Richard, Mavis Anderson of the Latin America Working Group, and a group of Shawn and Richard's friends. Many were former Peace Corps Volunteers which was fitting, since Shawn and I originally met when we were both doing work for the WorldView Magazine of the National Peace Corps Association.