There was a certain strength about her that was inimitable; like that of a matriarch forced into the role well before her years.

When we had seen her at the Child Aid office in el-Medina earlier that day, both her and her daughter Shayma had had their faces veiled. We had wondered if it had been out of modesty or out of the discomfort of having strangers see them receiving charity.  We had discreetly inquired if we could pay them a courtesy call and Umm Anwar had welcomed us to their home.  If she had reservations about us visiting her in her reduced state, she masked them valiantly.

She lived in a poor neighbourhood outside town -- a low-income housing area with rental units for families. Our car had made its way through the warren of dirt roads lined with over-flowing gutters and gaping potholes. It had rained recently and the stench was over-powering. Outside her door, there were piles of uncollected garbage around which some kids were playing a game of tag.

An outdoor lavatory, probably shared with the neighbours, was tucked in the corner of the courtyard. Like much of rural Iraq, this was almost certainly not connected to a sewage system. Another door led to the family room that possibly converted into a bedroom at night. There were thin mattresses scattered on the threadbare carpet. The walls were bare except for some posters.

Umm Anwar sat by the doorway.  We were given the most honourable seats in the interior of the rectangular room, traditionally the warmest part of the house.  But it felt as cold inside.   One of her sons brought in a jug of water and some glasses and placed them on the floor.  Like most Iraqis, they probably had no access to potable water and with fuel being so expensive, I wondered if they could afford to boil theirs.

Anwar, her son, brought in the sole kerosene lantern in the house and placed it before us. He had dark, sad eyes and the lantern cast a mysterious shadow over his soulful face. The silence was loud, the discomfort settling between us like the dampness in the air.  It felt as if we were there to pay a visit of commiseration.

And in certain ways we were. Umm Anwar had been recently widowed. Her husband had been killed in Baghdad a mere three years ago.  By a suicide bomber.  One of those nameless and faceless Iraqis who die everyday, whose numbers we have relegated to that part of our consciousness that has, over time, become numb.

Since meeting Umm Anwar, I have been haunted by images of shards of glass and splattered tealeaves.  For her husband had been a tea-seller in Baghdad - one of the many vendors that set up their modest stalls and arrange their rows of glasses on make-shift tables, selling hot cups of
sweet tea for a few cents each.

Did they find his body...how did they identify him...how did they tell Umm Anwar that he had been killed...that he wouldn't be returning home that night with whatever small profit he had made that day...how did they tell her that she was now a widow...left on her own to bring up six children.

How did they tell Anwar.

But we couldn't ask her those questions.  Instead, one of us asked about the number of rooms her family occupied.  She offered to show us around. Despite the daylight outside, the interiors were dark.  The kitchen window had been boarded over with some flattened tin cans and cardboard scraps in a heroic attempt to keep out the cold.  The plaster on the walls was peeling. I wondered what else we couldn't see in the darkness.  She gestured to her bedroom.  But we politely declined.

As we were leaving her youngest daughter, Zahraa, returned from school. "All my six children go to school," she told us, "from the eldest who is sixteen to Zahraa..." There was a lilt of hope in her statement.

Overwhelmed by the needs of a family this large making ends meet on a mere $25 dollars a month, I asked if this small contribution was making even the slightest difference at all.

"I count the days to when I can go to town to receive it," she said, "for, it is like the crescent, that comes upon us…month after month."