Mud

Young men and women haul mud from an excavation site where the owner will build an extension to his home.

One man chops it with a shovel, a girl grips a severed block and dumps it into a bucket. Another girl carries the bucket through mud, handing it to a boy who dumps it into a cart.

Women do the heavy work. Lifting and carrying and pushing.

He pulls and she pushes the cart down a narrow alley, turns right and maneuvers along a narrow potholed road jammed with motorcycles. Beep-beep. They get it to a central dumping zone filled with discarded bricks, debris, plywood and used mud. They dump it. Their return trip to the excavation site is light. They repeat the process.

Metta.