Collecting River Sand

These young men a women collect sand from the river-bottom for use inmaking cement and hollow-blocks. They earn about 150 pisos,( around$3.00) per day.

This is on the river near downtown Cagayan De Oro City, Mindanao,Philippines.

Wow looks like back breakin work for a pitence , intersting unique human behavior shot ! Very well done !

I watched these boys and one girl for nearly an hour. The water is from 3 to 5 feet deep, and the dive/duck down to the bottom and scrape up a bucket of sand, which they then dump into the boat. They average about two loads per minute. They work a twelve hour day as is the norm here in the Philippines.

It is truly hard work and the river is not clean water. The last test, that I am aware of, found an e-colli count Many Times the 'safe' level of 220 ppm.

Thank you for your kind comment.