At one point early this morning I watched and photographed as a father loaded up two bicycles with the nights scavenging of found cooked rice. On one bike he somehow tied and bungied three 5 gallon size pails to the back of the first bike (rather ingeniously) and a large sack of more old cooked found in the garbage rice to the second bike. After the loading was complete the father pushed the first heavier bike himself and the second he gave to his young son, a boy of about 10.
The photo op being over I turned and slowly walked away. I had not gone far when I heard the father say something loud and angrily in Burmese. I looked over and the boys bike had fallen over. There was a little hill leading up to the roadway and when trying to make it up that hill the boy had lost control of the bike. He tried one time, then a second but could not stand the bike up. The large bag on the back which had luckily not spilled out was too heavy for him. I put down my bag and the camera I was holding and limped over to help. Working together we got the bike righted, I pushed it up the hill and they were on their way.
Nice little deal right! Turns out the bag that I held when lifting the.bike up was very smelly and slimy. My hand was covered in some kind of sticky, stinky goo now., it was rather repulsive. I used up some of my precious drinking water to rinse my hand then I dried it on my pant leg before touching my dusty cameras again. Being a spoiled Canadian boy, I do not have to handle the ingredients of places like the dump often. The young boy I helped today will probably spend his life dealing with this ugliness, an ugliness I will never have to face, simply because of where I was born.
The photo op being over I turned and slowly walked away. I had not gone far when I heard the father say something loud and angrily in Burmese. I looked over and the boys bike had fallen over. There was a little hill leading up to the roadway and when trying to make it up that hill the boy had lost control of the bike. He tried one time, then a second but could not stand the bike up. The large bag on the back which had luckily not spilled out was too heavy for him. I put down my bag and the camera I was holding and limped over to help. Working together we got the bike righted, I pushed it up the hill and they were on their way.
Nice little deal right! Turns out the bag that I held when lifting the.bike up was very smelly and slimy. My hand was covered in some kind of sticky, stinky goo now., it was rather repulsive. I used up some of my precious drinking water to rinse my hand then I dried it on my pant leg before touching my dusty cameras again. Being a spoiled Canadian boy, I do not have to handle the ingredients of places like the dump often. The young boy I helped today will probably spend his life dealing with this ugliness, an ugliness I will never have to face, simply because of where I was born.
