I am happy to have won Hawah’s trust and to be able to photograph her, she is not nervous about it any more, and I think she likes seeing her picture on my blog – she sees my blog somehow. I like photographing her, she always looks a bit isolated and vulnerable in some photos, but she is neither. She has a gift for making friends, and another gift for smiling through tragedy and suffering.

I took this photo fo her new neighborhood, where she will finally be able to find work, have some security and  begin her new life in America. Her Muslim landlord seems a good man with a reputation for honesty and compassion, he was happy to help her.

She is strong and uncomplaining, but as she relaxes, I see she is full of humor and irony. She misses nothing, she will make someone a good worker. She says her family was shattered after her husband Hassan took ill and slipped into a coma.

She wants to gather her family – she doesn’t know where some of her children are – and begin moving forward with her life. She has seen the worst America has to offer, perhaps she will soon start seeing the best. She knows and I know and Ali knows that the road ahead for her will be long and hard.

I believe she will get there, and if she doesn’t, her children will. That is the story of the refugees, they come as much or more for their children as for themselves. I think this is probably goodbye to Hawah for me, unless that dinner materializes. She is going to be very busy in the coming weeks and months.

I like her neighborhood a lot, there is a strong sense of community there, and her apartment is spacious and comfortable. She and her family will do well there.

Either way, that smile has captured a slice of my heart. I hope it is a harbinger of the happiness she might find in America, still a land of refugees and immigrants, no matter what the angry politicians say. Godspeed, friend.