With my friend Esther Cardenas in Colombia

I'm visiting my good friend and artist, Esther Cardenas, in Cali, Colombia. This is an example of the small daily paintings that she has been doing. It is about 4" x 6 " and is an image of a farm in Holland where she recently went to paint with a former student.

Pictures from Bolivia

Here is an image of the great Salar de Uyuni, a salt flat near the town of Uyuni in Bolivia. The photo is taken from an "island" that comes up off the flats, loaded with a type of cactus I've never seen before. The salt flats themselves stretch off into the horizon, an endless flat white gleaming surface. It is supposed to be the largest salt flats in the world, a source of a bare subsistence livelihood for the few people who live nearby in Uyuni.

This a charming photo of a desperately poor family making their living from the salt desert. The husband refines the salt he has scraped off the surface of the desert and his wife, here with her two children, put the iodized salt in one kilo bags which sell for about 14 cents apiece.

From Bolivia

My husband and I have been in Bolivia for almost 10 days now and it has been both exciting and a heartwarming experience. We have found new board members for our scholarship program in Bolivia, identified other universities with which we can collaborate, and have met all of our scholarship recipients and their families personally. Tomorrow we go to Colombia and from there I plan to post some photos from our time in Bolivia.