Back Breaking

One night last week in Nepal I was walking back to my hotel in Pokhara when I came across these two women loading cinder blocks onto each other’s backs. As you can see, one woman has a basket full - at least 100 pounds - and the other woman has a few less tied onto her back with rope.

They were hauling these materials up a very steep hill that was at least 75 feet long. Up top a man was using the blocks to build a new room on their small house. This picture is taken just a few steps into their long climb that they would make over and over again judging by the size of their pile of cinder blocks.

The older woman - the one on the right carrying the heaviest load - stopped and turned toward me when she sensed what I was doing. “Hard,” I said to her, as I tried to communicate how much I admired what she was doing and at the same time wished there were an easier way.

She looked at me and said, “Yes, hard.” She savored the temporary pause in her climb, but when I moved on she resumed her task.