maike

There are 5 guys sitting on a step near the side of the street, and 5 pipes on their push carts. I see this scene replayed every few days, and it always brings to mind the Myth of Sisyphus. The pipes are steel, and I'm estimating them at 250kg each. I've walked this neighborhood, and neither the point of departure nor the destination are discernably close to this intersection, so I'm guessing their journey is on the order of kilometers.

Their fate, raw labor, in endless repitition, to earn enough to eat. Like most people I meet here, they are probably generally happy, and that is always an important lesson for me.

Addendum to notes from the road:

The often baffling custom here is for one's driver to stop the car as close as possible to the front door of the building you will enter. Today, the driver pulls up to a hotel, and stops the car about 500mm from an electrically driven revolving door. I watch, then open the car door to coincide with the rotation of the revolving door, get out and close the car door immdediately. The guy behind me also decides to get out on the hotel side, but is oblivious to the revolving door. I just watch as the revolving door attempts to remove the car door. At a certain point of force, the electric door does actually sense that it has hit an immoveable object, and stops; damage to the car is just a scuff mark on the leather arm rest. I can pretty much guarantee that the driver will create the same situation again, on another day, because that is the custom and his job.