Backbones: Street Sweepers

59 …
Clad in their government-issued long-sleeved yellow cotton shirts, they are dropped off, a few of them at a time, at every block or so of the “Baranggay Unit” to which they are assigned.  Without gloves and pollution-barrier masks, they get off a utility van, and equipped only with a broom and a dust pan, they begin to walk, sweep, and pick up litter uncaring passersby have thrown down shared paths.  They do not openly mind the sun already at the peak of the day’s heat.  They sweat torrents as hours pass, but they are relentlessly focused at their game keeping the street ways pleasant and free of trash … for at least half a kilometer or so.  They know that they would perhaps repeat going through the same spaces, tidying them, again, and again, and until the sun sets.