A Picture Says

a Thousand WordsA Creative Writing Project

Using Photos as Inspiration

Religous Readings: Afghan refugee Erram Ghourshaid, 5, is seen holding a book, during a daily class to learn how to read verses of the Muslim holy book, at a mosque in a poor neighborhood of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, March 24, 2010.

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And Here's to You: A man offers a rose to a woman to mark International Women's Day in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 8, 2010.

Balancing Act: A Tibetan girl carries food as she wades through a flooded market in New Delhi, India, on Sept. 12, 2010.

Barely surviving: A street child searches for recyclable material in a dump on the outskirts of Gauhati, India, on Nov. 19, 2009, a day ahead of Universal Children's Day. Twenty years after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, fewer youngsters are dying and more are going to school, but an estimated 1 billion still lack food, shelter, clean water and health care.

Child's play: An Afghan girl plays in front of a cemetery in the western outskirts of Kabul on May 4, 2010.

In Harm's Way: A Filipino boy is carried to safety through floodwaters brought by Tropical Storm Ketsana, in Quezon City, the Philippines, on Sept. 26, 2009. The storm cut a destructive path across Southeast Asia, killing at least 280 people in the Philippines.

Breaking fast: An Indian Muslim man and child break their fast on the first day of Ramadan at Jama Masjid mosque in New Delhi on Aug. 12.

Carrying a Load: Farmers use camels to transport watermelons across the river Ganges at Neevna village on the outskirts of Allahabad, India, on May 6, 2010. Government data show that India's food price index rose at an annual rate of 16 percent in the last 12 months

Child's Play for Child Workers: Bangladeshi child laborers work at a balloon workshop in Kamrangir Char, on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Nov. 19, 2009.

Awhirl in Mecca: Muslim pilgrims circle the Kaaba inside the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia after morning prayers on Nov. 24, 2010. They were performing a mini hajj as a prelude to the start of this year's annual pilgrimage.

Far from pasture: A firefighter tries to coax cattle out from a truck trailer that overturned at an overpass in Roswell, N. M., July 22, 2009. Emergency personnel also used a saw to cut through the roof of the trailer to reach the cattle.

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Foggy, foggy night: Fog covers the hills in the historical city center of Perugia, Italy, on Dec. 3, 2010

Upon reflection: Residents walk near a soccer goal post on Copacabana beach after heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro on April 10, 2010. The rains that started on April 5 triggered floods and mudslides that killed more than 200 people, most in poor hillside communities, and left thousands homeless in and around Brazil's second-biggest city.

Light snack: A roadside salesman hawks his wares in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Nov. 4, 2009.

Precious drops: A displaced Pakistani girl collects water from a water truck in Shah Mansour refugee camp, in northwest Pakistan, on June 9, 2009. An estimated 3 million people have fled the fighting, and the exodus has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.

Girl in red: A Pakistani girl displaced by fighting and temporarily living in Swabi district looks on as a family prepares to return to their homes on June 29, 2009. The government had urged Pakistanis from Buner to go home, but the plan stalled after a bomb exploded in that area, prompting it to be closed.

Going for a spin: Jade Miller, 6, takes a spin on a tire swing while on an outing, June 11, 2010, with her family to G.O. Phippeny Park in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Hip flip: Performers from a group called Nomad Dance do somersaults during a training session at Yoff beach in Senegal's capital Dakar, Nov. 14, 2009

In step: Female North Korean soldiers march during a military parade to commemorate the 65th anniversary of founding of the Workers' Party of Korea, in Pyongyang on Oct.10, 2010. North Korea's leader-in-waiting, the youngest son of ailing ruler Kim Jong-il, took center stage.

Little Krishna: A child dressed as Hindu god Krishna attends festivities to mark Janmashtami at a school in Mumbai, India on Sept. 1, 2010. Janmashtami is the festival that marks the birth of Krishna.

Makeshift playground: Children play in water pipes at a construction site on the banks of the Yamuna River in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on July 26, 2010.

Marks of the Mine: A gold miner prepares to climb down a mine shaft in Manica Province near the Zimbabwe border on Sept. 18, 2010.

Moving to the music: J.A. Hennigan, of Oakland, Pa., does the ''swim'' while moving to the music of Wizdom with her new friend Sreedhari Desai of Massachusetts at the Three Rivers Arts Festival at Point State Park in Pittsburgh. Desai, a Harvard graduate student, was in town for a conference. She met Hennigan at the bus stop on the morning of June 13, 2010, and the two spent the day together.

No place to call home: A girl cries as she looks at the remains of a house destroyed by a fire in the Commune 13 neighborhood of Medellin, Colombia, on June 3, 2010. More than 80 houses were affected by the fire. No casualties were reported.

Palatial soccer: Afghan men play soccer in front of the bombed-out old royal palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 23. The palace was designed by a French architect and built in 1923 by King Amanullah.

Post-Tsunami Grief: December 2009

The power of touch: Mahmoud Ali, an 8-year-old blind Palestinian boy, rests next to a Braille typewriter in his classroom in the Al-Qabs school for blind and visually impaired children in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sept. 14, 2009.

Quest for water: A woman climbs into a cave to collect water at Bukima, just north of the eastern Congolese city of Goma, on Aug. 20, 2010. The cave is the only local water source.

Rain hats: Bangladeshi women remove rain covers from rice after the harvest at a farm on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on May 20, 2010. The covers keep the rice dry during the rainy season.

A Man reading from the Q’uran during Ramadan

Safe haven: Three-month-old Nasiba sleeps in a hammock while taking refuge from the flood with her family, in a classroom in Sukkur, in Pakistan's Sindh province, on Aug. 25, 2010.

Shattered remains: An Uzbek woman and her son are reflected in the broken mirror of their destroyed house in Shark village outside Osh on Oct. 7. Kyrgyzstan is trying to create the first parliamentary democracy in Central Asia, four months after hundreds of people were killed in ethnic violence and six months after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown in a revolt.

And the heavens twinkled: The Milky Way spreads across the night sky over Mormon Row, an historic settlement in Grand Teton National Park near Jackson, Wyo., on Nov. 19, 2010. The light in the distance is the city of Driggs, Idaho, on the west side of the Teton range.

Street life: Vehicles move past as a wastepaper collector sleeps on a street on the early morning of Sept. 13, 2010, in Karachi, Pakistan.

Frightful gun play: A Palestinian boy reacts as youths point their toy guns at him, in an alley in the West Bank refugee camp of Al-Amari in Ramallah, on June 16.

Sudsing up: Two boys wash their hair under a communal water outlet at a camp for flood victims in Nowshera, in Pakistan's northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, on Aug. 24, 2010. Pakistan could take years to recover from the flood disaster, its president said

Tightly knit: Afghan women learn how to make a doll at an April 15, 2010, workshop in Kandahar sponsored by a Malaysian nongovernmental organization called Mercy.

Totok's shower: A mental patient named Totok reacts before he is given a shower at the Galuh foundation compound in East Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia, on Oct. 23, 2010. The Galuh compound has housed more than 285 underprivileged mental patients since it was founded in 1982 by Gendu Mulatip.

Dual-purpose dresses: Models in Tel Aviv, Israel, wear wedding dresses made mostly from toilet paper as part of an ad campaign shot Sept. 8, 2010, for an Israeli toilet paper company.

After the uprising: A child stands among people attending a morning prayer in the center of Bishkek on April 9. A crowd gathered in the burned-out center of the Kyrgyz capital to mourn at least 75 people killed in an uprising that ousted the government.

Teach a man to fish:An Indian fisherman casts his net in the River Ganges on the outskirts of Allahabad, India, on April 10, 2010.

War stories: Two Romanian war veterans chat beneath an umbrella during commemorations at the Military Academy WWII Heroes memorial in central Bucharest on May 9, 2010. War veterans and their relatives, together with military commanders and politicians, gathered to remember the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945, which marked the end of World War II in Europe.

War zone: A U.S. Marine from the 4th Light Armored Recon walks toward a LAV armored fighting vehicle in Khan Nashin, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Dec. 3, 2010.

Mosque entry: A child walks inside a mosque at Teluk Meranti village in Pelalawan, Riau province, Indonesia, on Nov. 10, 2010.

Music to my ears: A boy plays the violin at Sulaimaniya Music Institute in Sulaimaniya, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad, on July 10, 2009.

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Photos from MSNBC’s The Week In Pictures