Working Life

San Salvador, the nation’s capital, is still catching up to the twenty-first century. Modernization is happening slowly, and as you walk through the city centre of national palaces and central parks you will find that most of the side streets and neighbourhoods of commerce are just as they were fifty or more years ago.

This man works inside a covered row of shops that runs along 4th Street East, right across from Liberty Plaza, one block from the National Library, and as close to the heart of the city as you can get without skipping a beat. But he’s not at all worried about twenty-first century progress pushing him aside for bigger and better things. It’s no secret that Central America has always been the last place on anyone’s list for change to happen, and he knows he’s got at least another fifty years here if he wants it.

This woman runs her own small business out of this tiny space at the front of the building where she lives. She buys large pieces of coal from her supplier and cuts them down into one kilogram bags of a more manageable size. Her customers are mostly street food stall owners who use portable coal burning stoves and grills.

At the end of each day she’ll close up her shop and walk down a long, narrow laneway that leads to the back of the building where she lives. Other than her dog staying by her side the whole time, there’s not much more we know about who she is or the life she lives. This one photograph is all we have.

This woman works in one of the many teff flour mills in the Soddo city market. It’s not her family’s mill but just an ordinary job she feels lucky to have. She works every day but Sunday out here on the front deck sorting the grain before it’s milled. She usually wears a long dress to protect herself from all the flour dust and always wraps her hair up in a scarf like this one.

She wasn’t quite sure about having her photo taken today, but then brushed herself off, stepped across the floor to where it was clear, and stood straight and tall for this otherwise ordinary portrait of her everyday elegance.

Unfortunately, many Armenians still smoke way too many cigarettes in a day, and, unfortunately, even though this is a very nice man, he’s not helping any.

In recent years the people of El Salvador have suffered through and rejoiced in the brutal, unjust, and life saving mass incarceration of the violent gangs that once owned these streets and held this nation hostage for decades. No one will deny that among the tens of thousands of young men who’ve been rounded up and imprisoned, hundreds of innocents have been caught in the crackdown and are now losing hope of ever being released.

Among the voices of the nation’s citizenry you can hear the inner conflict they battle each day. They are mournful, reluctant and yet willing accomplices to the undeniable injustice of all that has transpired. These years are the first time in their lives that they have ever lived in peace or awoken to a morning without fear of terror or helplessness. To the person, each of them is overflowing with emotion, mostly of hope for life ahead, a feeling they have likely never known or dared to dream.

In the months ahead the young boy in this photograph will turn three. His life to this day has flourished in the joy of his parents and grandparents working together in quiet peace and prosperity. Here, in their modest Santa Ana food stall at the Colon Market bus terminal, this boy has never known the fear that once surrounded their everyday life. If anyone is to judge these years in the history and trajectory of El Salvador, let it be him.

Early every morning this man buys fresh greens at the wholesale market to then sell throughout the day. He sets up shop wherever foot traffic is steady, and he’ll work all day until everything is sold. His produce table is made of plastic bags and his chair is nothing more than a fine sense of balance.

Age has not worn him down or changed him one bit, except for having made him a realist. He no longer dreams of opportunities for a better life, but simply of ways to live his best life. Maybe this is all that changes when we get older, or all that really needs to. ― Become a realist and keep your balance.

Dhobi Ghat in Mumbai is the world’s largest outdoor laundry facility where the Dhobi cast of men and women wash clothes for many of the businesses in the city. This photograph was taken at the end of a long, hard workday. It is often the case that entire families work here at Dhobi Ghat, and for many, it is also where they live.

This man works at the fish market attached to the Arica docks. He'll fillet the daily catch for you right out of the water and prepare a simple ceviche to tie you over till dinner. His fish stall feels more like home than a place of business, and if you're interested, he'll walk you through the memories in every single photo that hangs on the walls around him. You will learn that family, fútbol and fish are three constants that have sustained him ever since he was a young boy and that continue to inspire and fulfill him to this day. You can hear it in his voice. These are the loves of his life.

These are not the same grey coveralls his great-grandfather used to wear when he opened this metalwork shop a hundred years ago, but it feels like them.

In the central market district of Soddo, a shop owner waits patiently outside his fabric store for the first Saturday morning customers to arrive.