Built on Their Breath

The first thing you notice about Maya is her hands. Calloused, thickened, mapped by nine years of carrying brick.

She holds her tea with both hands the way people do when they're used to holding heavy things and looks at you with the patient expression of someone who has never had the luxury of thinking about air quality. She has thirty minutes before her break ends. How long have you worked here? "Nine years.

First near Lubhu, then here.

We came after the earthquake.

There was nothing left in Sindhupalchok, so we followed the work." What does a full day look like? "Wake at five.

Start by six.

Carry bricks from the kiln to the stacking area.

Walk back.

Carry again.

Until the light goes." Do you wear anything on your face? She touches the scarf loosely around her neck.

"This.

I pull it up when the dust gets bad." Has anyone ever given you a proper mask? She looks at you like you've asked whether anyone gave her a helicopter. "No." Do you ever have trouble breathing? A pause.

She looks at her tea. "In the mornings there's a cough.

For maybe two, three years now." Did you see a doctor? "Once.

He said avoid dust." She says this without irony fully aware of the impossibility, fully resigned to it. Do you know other workers who got sick? "Yes.

Kiran dai twelve years at the kiln.

His breathing became very bad.

He went back to his village two years ago." The kiln workers call it "kiln sickness." The medical name is silicosis.

It is irreversible.

There is no cure.

Maya doesn't know this. If you could change one thing, what would it be? She thinks genuinely. "A mask that actually works.

And someone to check our health regularly.

So we know before it's too late." Do you think that will happen? She smiles.

Tired, warm, without illusion. "Maybe.

If people start caring about us the way they care about the buildings we make for them." She pulls the scarf over her nose. And goes back to building someone else's home.