Mark Caicedo 

@setlistthief
I’m a writer/photographer whose work celebrates natural and cultural diversity, live performance, and the world around us.

This post reflects on the importance of maintaining a robust foreign assistance program. My 30+ year career in international development work taught me that the payoffs for U.S. citizens far outweigh the costs. Now that my beloved former agency, and the entire foreign assistance world is under attack, I am both personally and professiona…

Foundation

Callejon

+++++++++++++++

Guanajuato, Leon, Mexico, January 11, 2025

On this Valentine’s Day, a message of love to my fellow Substackers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Love is Love

.

Rialto Beach, Olympic National Park, Clallam, Washington, June 2019

This essay is a meditation on volunteerism and its connection to supporting and growing the common good. As former Peace Corps Volunteers and Recruiters, my wife and I both understand and lived the obligations and rewards of volunteer work. These days, however, I’ve been thinking increasingly about volunteerism’s connection to the health of a community, and resistance to malevolent outside forces.

Outrage

I’m currently on a road trip down the west coast and although the weather’s been dreadful, a break in the atmospheric river allowed me to experience the extraordinary beauty of Oregon’s southern coast.

For the last several years, I’ve been photographing and writing about live music performance for ParklifeDC, a music blog based out of Washington, DC. Combining my love for live music, taking pictures of and writing about it, has been (and still is) a wonderful bright spot in my life.

But a house is not a home, just as the church is not the congregation, or a city isn’t the same as a community. Those things we build in our minds, and in our hearts. Such is a sanctuary, as well.

Sanctuary

“In America: Remember”

Installation by Suzanne Firstenberg, Washington Monument, Washington, DC, September 26, 2021

++++++++++++++++