I let my gaze drift over
the tired and hungry crowd,
they had been stood there for hours,
hoping that today it would happen,
children, mothers, the old
with faces that seemed to have
lived a thousand years,
wizened by a lifetime of living
with the relentless burning of the sun.

each family head clutching the
prized and precious ticket
given to them by the aid workers,
for without the ticket
there would be no food,
the anticipation was tangible
the tension high, nervous mutterings and
anxious glances across the desert waste,
would it arrive?

the relief convoy
would it arrive?