Living water

In the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan, the age-old sun beats down harshly and water is a resource to be fought over. Entire communities depend on pipelines that deliver an ever-decreasing flow; tanks are used up, wells run dry and a tense silence echoes throughout the hills, speaking of profound inequality. Where springs once flowed freely, now there are only heavily guarded cisterns and broken promises. Everyday life keeps going thanks to negotiation, exhaustion and the faint hope that the next water truck will arrive on time. In every gesture and every meeting of the local communities, one feels the pressure of a narrowing future, as if the lack of water exposed with brutal clarity everything that holds life together.