Sugar cane season in Lerdo. Lots of people work who don't otherwise have jobs. Men work, some women work, old and young. After cane fields are burned to kill biting insects and venemous snakes, the field workers go in with their machetes and hack down thousands of acres of sugar cane. It is 100% physical labor. No machines cut the cane. They stack it in rows as long as the fields. The temperature is always 90 or higher. The humidity is up there, too. The sky is thick with haze from other burning fields and from sugar cane refineries which are called ingenios. Ash coats streets and cars and lungs. It is a big and dirty business and the labor is cheap. The harvest runs for six months every year, from November until May.