Hard Yakka..

The main road outside our place has been under construction since October '07. This is a bus route and during monsoon it fell apart. The buses had no trouble but the rickshaws and bikes had a hell of a time being thrown over the heaving pavement or dropping into the newly formed potholes.
The local authority has decided to concrete the road and to place some drainage pipes to alleviate the flooding in monsoon. It is so flat in Juhu, the pipes are small and will clog with rubbish and silt very quickly so I fear all the work will be an unfortunate waste. For the time being though, the new roadworks provide quite a few workers and their families employment and shanty housing near the village.

It's hard yakka for the workers who's day starts at the crack of dawn and ends after the sun has set. An excavator breaks the pavement but the labor intensive job of digging a trench is a job for many hands. Loading the dirt into what can only be described as a cooking wok, the workers slowly fill a waiting truck. This continues all day at a steady pace.

The digging around the conduits to finish the trench is a messy business as the trench fills with water turning the trench to mud. A pump roars into action to remove the water, but the hose isn't long enough and soon enough the water is back in the trench.

Slowly, over a matter of a week or so a 30m length of trench takes shape and the timber shoring is installed to make the cramped working conditions a little safer. Only 300m to go...

The work is not the domain of the men. They may be the ones in the trench but the women play their part in the excavation and removal of the dirt from the site. Since the men and the women are working it is only fitting that their children come to the site to be with their family. Yesterday we could hear a baby crying, we look out to see a sheet tied in a tree like the cartoon picture of the stork bringing a new baby to a family. The mother went to the dangling sheet to attend to the crying the baby. Once quiet, the baby is placed back in the sheet and the mother takes her place in the human conveyor.