Nick de la Torre

Dozens of volunteers joined together in Houston, Texas, to construct a mudhif, a reed structure dating back 5,000 years to the Mesopotamian marshes of southern Iraq. To this day the hut serves as a town hall for Marsh Arabs to meet with their sheikh. In Houston, it also served as a meeting place--for some of the city's 4,000 Iraqis and their fellow Houstonians to share insights into an ancient society and gain a sense of community.