My boys are lucky!

Many children in developed countries will hear their parents say they are lucky. Lucky because they are not hungry, like the children in Africa. Lucky because there is no child labour like in India.

I have told my boys the same on many occasions and because we have lived in Africa and now in India, they have seen that it is true. My boys know how well off they are compared to many children their age in Africa or India.

Today I saw children working in our own street. The roads of Vista are being resurfaced and there were a few children/teenagers working. The boy in the photo had to keep the rollers of the machine wet, so he walked around it with a bucket of water. He did this while the machine was moving!

I took a picture and then walked away, because I couldn't watch it. What could I have done? It feels so wrong to see a child work, hard manual labour, on stinking hot, freshly laid asphalt. It is wrong on so many levels and it was happening literally on my doorstep....but I did nothing but give him a packed of cookies when he had a break....nothing!

When I took this photograph, the machine was going backwards and the driver never checked where the boy was, he just kept going at quite some speed! With the noise and the position he is in, he would never have noticed if the boy slipped and fell...and still I did nothing at all but feel sorry for the boy.