In the Queue Outside Geneva, a Chorus Nobody Scheduled

The line for the relief distribution point three streets from the Concordat hall has become, without anyone planning it, the session's unofficial gallery. Migrants among the registered climate-displaced — a population now past 108 million and climbing through the hot months — have filled the wait with the songs of the places they left, and passersby have begun to stop and listen. "We are not here to be a symbol," said Amara Diallo, who left a drought-emptied town two years ago and now leads a hesitant evening chorus near the water tanks. "We sing because waiting is long, and because the songs are ours." Hearth Relief International volunteers, ladling from the same tanks the delegates are arguing over, say the music has changed the mood of the queue more than any communiqué. Inside, the session weighs formulas; outside, a woman keeps time with a plastic cup against a railing. The delegates cannot hear her. The queue can, and for an hour it is almost enough.