It's hard work - if you can get it

[setting up the street vendors]

[the cardboard man]

Good work is hard to come by here in Brazil. Hard work, on the other hand, is all around us.

[the kitchen gas man]

[the salvage man]

Our apartment in Icaraí has a small balcony that looks out over the main road, Gavião Peixoto, cutting through our neighborhood. Every morning there is a parade of men who have been hired by street vendors to lug their wares from a nearby garage to their spot on the sidewalk. (So these guys are a couple of rungs lower than the street vendors on the “good work” ladder.)

[the water man]

[the grocery delivery guy]

These workers are like a line of ants making their way to and from the overnight storage garage around the corner to the various vendor locations several blocks back up the one way street in front of our apartment.


[the bakery delivery guy]

As the main thoroughfare in the neighborhood, our street also gets a steady stream of delivery people, freight haulers, salvage collectors and other workers making their way to their destinations. One way - schmun way. While the four wheel vehicles go in just one direction (for the most part), motorcycles, foot-powered and hand-powered wheeled contraptions are just looking for the shortest distance between two points.

[the empadinha man]

[father and son team will haul anything you want]

[municipal workers off to the worksite]

[the rug man]

How these folks survive on what must be very minimal compensation for their back-breaking efforts I cannot fathom. Like clockwork these men are out there in the street every morning starting at 6 a.m. for another long day.