On April 20, 2014, South Sudanese refugees waited for water at Rhino Camp in Uganda. A Sudan Tribune photograph and caption state that people queued at the only borehole in the camp capable of providing enough water. The most visible line in the image is formed not by bodies but by jerrycans arranged on the ground.
Placing containers in order can preserve a household's turn without requiring someone to hold a heavy can throughout the wait. It does not, however, solve the shortage. The line of containers simply makes visible the concentration of demand at a single functioning source. The caption gives no waiting time, volume of water, or number of households, so those details remain unknown.
A water queue in a refugee camp should not be turned into a pleasing story about communal ingenuity. It documents people displaced from South Sudan who had only a narrow point of access to a basic necessity. In this photograph, the empty vessels perform a second task before carrying water: they stand in for families and hold their time in the queue.