Msasani Rockchoppers

You'll find these workers along the sides of roads throughout #Dar es Salaam. These #photographs were taken in a neighborhood called #Msasani, which is also the name of a peninsula where most of Dar's upper crust and expats live. It's a tough life, but at least one that affords a living. Notice the different sizes of rocks in the piles near the woman on the left.

Men and women work equally side by side, busting rocks and cement blocks and breaking them down into smaller pieces to be used as decorative elements in landscaping and gardening. These women are spending the day busting up rocks with hammers. And believe me, those hammers are heavy. I wouldn't want to arm-wrestle these women!

Remember the woman in the first photo? Here she is up close, sorting rocks into different sizes and then bagging them up. Takes about a day to make a full bag, and each bag sells for around 1,000 Tanzanian shillings, or t-shillings. Or to be accurate, in Kiswahili, "shilingi." Which is worth about $0.44 USD or 0.37 EUR. They sell a bag or two a day. Not great, but not bad in the Tanzanian street economy!

Here's her partner, who is also bagging and sorting, and at least where they sit is out of the hot Dar sun!

And, we're done!

Thanks for tagging along on this trip in the suburbs of Dar es Salaam.