Big White Sacks of Rice

Yangon Port, 5 o’clock early morning. In spite of the early hour, the place is heaving with activity. Lines of men, desperate for work, struggle under the weight of their loads as they offload bags of rice onto waiting trucks. The white sacks weigh up to 50 kilos each. It is a gruelling, brutal and exhausting task – the effort forcing sweat from their straining bodies. For every white sack carried, they receive a tally stick. And for every tally stick they receive a mere pittance . . .