Children of a Lesser God

These gorgeous kids live on a construction site. Often when houses are being built, the labourers set up basic homes on the ground level. Their families have a secure space for the duration of the project rather than living in squalor in a shanty. The owners of the residence in turn have someone to keep an eye on all the building materials.

'Home' is a term I use very loosely. The labourers are on a basic daily wage and have few belongings. They sleep on the dirt or concrete, on bits of plywood, whatever surface they can stretch themselves out on at night. Comfort is not a feature in their abodes. Nor is electricity for lighting or gas to cook with. They use improvised coal fired steel buckets to cook on. Women work as hard as the men digging, shovelling, carrying bricks and mixing cement by hand and carry the loads on their heads.
The kids usually don't go to school, sometimes help on the site or roam the streets.

I stopped to talk to this brother and sister. I wanted to scoop them up and hug them. Instead I gave them a sweet each and asked if I could take their photo. Apparently people here don't ask. But people walking past do like to stare at us chatting.

When I looked at the photos later, I loved this one for the bond between the two - the way the sister has her arm casually on her brother's shoulder and he is reaching back to touch her hand.

They looked like sweet kids to me and momentarily smiled, but in their eyes I also saw uncertainty and a question mark. Their life is without doubt hard and they probably have every reason not to trust people.