On the road with the women building Myanmar

In the mountain village of Kalaw, Myanmar, women in bamboo hats are busy laying the foundations of a road. They woke at dawn, ate mohinga fish soup for breakfast and then joined other female colleagues in the boiling sun. Surrounded by red soil and gravel, the five-month baby of 21-year-old Cho Mi Ko is also on the roadside. He is sleeping under a makeshift shelter, oblivious to his mother’s hard labour.

The sight of women building roads is common in Myanmar. From the rural areas of Rakhine state to touristic Bagan, fuming tarmac and piles of debris are mostly handled by female workers, wearing an extra layer of the traditional yellow plant extract tanaka to protect their faces from the sun. (Courtesy of The Guardian)