Memories of the Kuwait War~Chapter 11~ Heat, Cold and Rations

 

Picture Courtesy: Google

Waking up next morning, I had a really sore back. Sleeping on the perfectly smooth floor in our houses itself is difficult, so just imagine the plain ground. The sun was already up and there was no trace of the cold weather we experienced the night before. It was warm, and slowly going on to getting hot. “Will we be able to go today, Amma? My body is paining. Is the Amman camp also like this? Why Saddam Hussein came to Kuwait! I don’t like this tent”, my poor brother has so many questions in frustration and helplessness. “We will go soon, just pray to God”, was Amma’s reply. 

We managed to get fresh in makeshift toilets and snacked on some cake and juice we had left of what we carried with us. We were still hungry. There were many more tents outside than what I saw in the dark the previous night. So many people were walking outside and I saw they belonged to different nationalities.  Arabs were there too. They all seemed to be walking in one direction. Acha said that food was being distributed and we had to go collect it. He asked me and my brother to accompany him while Amma stayed back with my sister. We walked a little bit until we reach the end of a long queue. At the other end of the queue we could see a truck loaded with food and 2 men sitting at the back, distributing it to one person at a time.

We eagerly looked at the people going back with the food they got, to see what was being served. We saw they had Khubz (Arabic bread a.k.a Kubboos) and something else that wasn’t clear, but it looked like canned food. We couldn’t wait to get to the front of the line, not because we were hungry, but because it was so hot and our skin was burning. Once we got to the front, one of the people distributing food, asked my dad if we, pointing to the 3 of us, were together, to which he nodded yes. He then handed some canned food and 2 Khubz to my father with some water, my brother was handed some juice and 2 Khubz. The other man put his hand into the big bag and pulled out around 3 Khubz and handed them down to me with a bottle of water. I took them from him with so much reverence, and held them close to my chest as if they were precious finds. The Khubz was not so fresh and was quite dry and hard. They were the large Lebanese-type Khubz, which are almost the size of  a dosa tava. As I walked back behind my brother and father, back to our tent, still tightly holding on to the food, which I we got after almost an hour of waiting under the scorching desert sun, my mind was going out to the people who actually live like this daily. I cannot describe my emotions. I was wondering if this would be enough for all 5 of us, but then also if my sister would be able to chew such hard bread with a wounded chin. 

Just a few steps away from the truck, with lots of people still in the queue, looking out at the food we had in our hands, just as we did a while ago, I felt something moving on my arm. It all happened within seconds. One of the Khubz I was holding on to, broke into half and fell towards the ground. My heart screamed, “No! That’s  probably the only food we have for today! I can’t let my family down!”. I almost cried as I quickly bent over to rescue that precious bread....But alas, it had already landed itself on the  burning golden grains on which we stood. Not minding the tears, I quickly picked it up, only to have a second piece break off and fall down. I could help my tears. “Saramilla mole, athu potte, edukkenda!” (Don’t worry dear, it’s ok, leave it, don’t pick it up), said my father who happened to turn around at that time and witness my plight. I stood there and just looked at him with flooded eyes,  guilty of having failed them. He put his arm around my shoulder, and took the extra bottles of water from me and the three of us walked back to the tent. I kept my gaze down on the sand. All the while, the scores of people standing in the queue had their eyes on us. I'm sure they were all watching the whole scene with the same emotions as I had. The value of food and water is more than riches and gold, I realized that day. 

~priya~