Beginning of Essay
Dawn looked out the window hopelessly as the train rolled over the Syria border. Her black lab, Billy, sat next to her, his tongue hanging out in exhaustion. Dawn was remembering her long boring journey from California headed to Iraq. First, she got on a bus from ....

Middle of Essay
.... back on a train. Billy grunted his “I’m bored, I want to go to sleep but you’re in my way grunt”. So Dawn scooted over and Billy lay down with his hind legs out to the side, his nose on her lap, and fell asleep. Dawn wondered why she had agreed to visit her mother and her mother’ s family in Iraq? Dawn’s mother had returned to her native homeland of Iraq when Dawn was seven years old. She has kept in touch by writing, but it’s not the same as seeing her mother’s loving smile and feeling her warm presence. In her mother’s last letter, she asked Dawn to come to her home in Mosul. Dawn didn’t know her mother’s family but ....