Ordinary Life Illuminated.

Melissa Tabeek is an educator in New Orleans. You can find her @tabeekmelissa on Twitter and Instagram.

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What lies beyond the door. Halloween light.

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Bikes upon bikes upon bikes in Amsterdam.

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Bike life, night life, in Amsterdam.

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Research couldn’t be more fun.

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Rowaida Alam started to have trouble with her vision when she was 14 years old. By the time she was 15, she could no longer read and had to drop out of school. In the two years that followed, she refused to go out or see anyone, unwilling to accept the fact that she had lost her sight. But after two years, with the help from a family friend, she came to terms with her disability. She now is married and has two children, but she faces a whole other discrimination when it comes to being a mother with a disability.

“That’s what hurts the most, when people think I can’t take care of my children,” Rowaida says. “I give triple the effort to offer my children the best for their life. Even though I proved myself with the first baby, some people still don’t trust me. It is hard-wired into society. It is not going to change any time soon, it needs generations,” she says.

You can find more about Rowaida and other inspiring mothers with a disability from Lebanon and the United States on my website, melissatabeek.com.

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Artist and the illustrator of more than 70 children's books, E.B. Lewis talks about his journey to where he is today at the Broome County Public Library.

"[On artists] We're the crazy ones," he said. 

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A beautiful street cat spends a winter in the warmth in Beirut, Lebanon. 

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Tofaha Khalil is a 35-year-old mother from Aleppo, Syria. She lives in Merkabta, near Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli, in a small informal tented settlement with 11 other families and her family of six. They fled to Lebanon more than a year ago after their house was destroyed during intense shelling. That day took the sight in one of her eyes and her infant son, Omar. Six months ago, she had a son. She named him Omar.

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Mazen Khaddaj loves instability. For most people, uncertainty and chaos can cause stress. He is not most people. Khaddaj thrives off it, citing it as a vital element to his creative process. The 29-year-old artist, from the mountains of Aley, lives in the heart of Beirut, embracing the disorder. He lives life at full-speed, working long days at J. Walter Thompson advertising agency while still finding time to create.

“What is happening in the region, artists need this instability. I quit meditation. Everything in my life is stressful. I work almost 12 hours a day at my advertising job, but this stress causes me to go to places where I can create and provide my inner satisfaction,” Khaddaj says hours before his second solo exhibition, The Middle State, opened at 392Rmeil393 in Gemmayze.

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Inside the workshop of a potter in the Lebanese village of Assia in the north of the country.

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In honor of National Library Week in the United States, here's to public libraries everywhere. These teenagers are in the Bachoura branch of Beirut's public library network. They come here to study after school almost every day. Beirut is a city with so many issues, but I hope that ASSABIL is able to convince the municipality of the value of public libraries so they can eventually expand across the city. Here's to hope. 

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Joseph and Dana Barchini check on ceramic pieces in their oven in northern Lebanon. This father-daughter team was so inspiring and lovely to report on. Through all of my work on artisans in Lebanon, they were two people who I felt really love their work and know the craft so deeply that sculpting is just a natural extension of who they are. They make incredible work that you can find on their Facebook page, Barchini Ceramics. 

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Amal Haddad holds her mother’s cell phone in her hand, with the app, “Smart Dictionary,” that she uses to help her with her homework. Amal missed two years of school in Aleppo, then in Lebanon, but is now attending a non-accredited private school with an English curriculum.

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Taken while reporting a story on schooling for Syrian refugee education in Lebanon as part of a project for IDEO.org. I came across a truly inspiring little girl, Ahlam, whose dream it is to be both an English teacher and an artist. If this photo doesn’t make you smile, I don’t know what will!

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A collection of taqiyahs from different families in Erbil - each has their own design and colors.

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Kurdish women in the city center of Erbil, Northern Iraqi Kurdistan.

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Capturing a moment in Sulaymaniyah, Northern Iraq.