I'll be honest. I was not looking forward to returning to Cairo for much of the summer.

We overpacked, but I wasn't about to let go of my two Roombas, printer (for some reason contraband in this country, but I was counting on lax customs), dozens of new books and gallon of Indiana Amish maple syrup. I did leave behind an embarrassing number of my own books, which I overbought based on selling out the first night of my tour. And some shorts I now wish I had back, if only for wearing around the house with the shades drawn.

Gustavo Martínez, intrepid reporter for Al Día newspaper, wrote this short article (in Spanish) based on an interview I did with him a few weeks ago. My favorite part is the little video accompanying it, in which he interviews several local Honduran guys, at least one a former gang member.

First, I'm moving this event to the archive: August 6th@6pm, Robin's Bookstore, Philadelphia flyer. It was a cozy venue and small but fun audience. Two more to go, this weekend.

And I'm not going to write a lot about this topic, but I have been following the growing chorus of feminist voices in Latin America signalling their disgust with Daniel Ortega and calling for Zoilamérica, his sociologist, Sandinista stepdaughter, to have access to some sort of justice in Nicaragua.

Another article is out, with the help of UDW journalist Cyril Mychalejko and the folks at UC Press. This one draws on the interview from my previous post and excerpts "Melisa," one of the saddest parts of my book. At least to me. But one that kind of encapsulates the whole problem. If you look right now, you can see both how it looks as a "featured article" on Upside Down World and the linked article itself.

Emma Lovegrove, an Anthropology student at University College of London currently writing for Honduras This Week, put together this article about my WHDH tour. I'm excited to be in the publication, which is the most widely read English-language source for Honduran news. In the article, Lovegrove draws from a longer interview I did with her over email, which I'm including in its entirety below:

I took it off upcoming, but just for the record, here's what I've done so far:

• July 11@7pm WHDH Release Party, Modern Times, SF
• July 14@5:30pm, Public lecture: "Private armies & the international war on healthcare," CNA/NNOC Oakland

I'm writing this several days after (some of) the facts, so it's not as sharp as it could be. Ma3lesh. The L.A. event was great, and good to have a chance to reach out to at least one group of Central Americans. We did the whole event in Spanish (sorry Juli). Oh, but before talking about the event, I have to tell you about the venue and format. It was at CARECEN, the Central American Resources Center, in the Ramparts Division. Oscar and I met at MacArthur Park, which is forever defined in my mind by the Donna Summer song, had some delicious tamales, and walked down to CARECEN from there.

That's the feeling I have from losing my hard drive, with the last month and a half of work on it. Except for what's on this blog, alhamdulilleh. It's been confirmed as irretrievable by the best data recovery people in the country. They literally retrieved Data's data. Okay, I know Brent Spiner played a fictional character, but it gave me such hope. There are so many things happening now that I should be writing about, and they should be thrilling to me, but I lost so much more than a month and a half of work on that damned disk. I just want my time back.

...or perhaps just a reminder to back up my hard drive. After yesterday's out-of-the-blue crash, it'll cost me more than the macbook itself to recover the past month of work. And you know what? It's worth the bloody two months of my miserable salary it's gonna cost to not rewrite that chapter. A pox on you, MacBook!

Check out Univisión's news shows today. I'll be on one of them. Not sure which yet, but it will be focused again on the SF deportation issue. I will be joining Ana Perez, director of CARECEN, and others from that organization, the same wonderful group that's hosting Oscar and my event in LA next Thursday (see UPCOMING, to the left).