Her portrait is the last image for tonight, as she is the younger sister of the girl running down that path. Every year she seems to know the timing of my arrival. As she told her father one day, 'Halim always comes during Ramadan.'
Her father is a most open-minded person, and has stood up for me on several occasions including during a rift between me and his own brother. When this rift happened, he brought me and his brother in front of the town elders to hear our stories, listened to both of us and then decided that his brother's treatment of me was both wrong and inappropriate… telling his brother than he needed to mind his own affairs and leave me alone to photograph the children.
This is where she gets her strength, and divine spirit. She is the gentlest of little girls, always greeting me with love and kindness. I have missed photographing her for the past five years, and feel a deep sense of sadness. The violence in the region means that her life is beyond my idea of complex, and to place her and her family in danger with my visit would be foolish.
Hopefully change will come much sooner than later, and we can once again sit down for tea under the clear blue Lebanese sky!
Note: This image was made with a Canon G10.
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