Chadian women crush gravel to make ends meet in dust and heat

Chadian women crush gravel to make ends meet in dust and heat

N'DJAMENA, Chad: In one hand Idjele grips a heavy hammer, in the other a block of concrete that she smashes into pieces with heavy blows that narrowly miss her fingers, her gaze towards the horizon. She has been crushing gravel for so long that the gestures of the job have become second nature.

In the heart of N'Djamena dozens of women spend up to 12 hours a day bent over this work, pulverizing concrete, cement or brick chunks while children hover around them in the dust and heat of 45 degrees Celsius. The women work on piles of debris along roads and in vacant lots at the foot of the modern buildings that make up the Chadian capital's business district.

The United Nations ranks Chad as the third least-developed country in the world and these women are at the heart of a side industry re-using building materials. Men buy blocks from demolition sites and sell them to the gravel crushers, who break them down and re-sell them to those who cannot afford concrete. Mixed with mud or a little plaster, the gravel will serve as building material for new homes.

'All I could find'

Idjele is only 38 but like the women around her