It is amazing to us how hard this people work to earn a living. These men are loading oranges for shipment. They must be handpicked in orchards. Most citrus trees have long spiny thorns. It is hot, hard, and oftimes bloody work. They are loaded by hand into large, but smaller, trucks. The white truck with the red rack is an example.


Then, they unload the organges into huge, handmade baskets. They are carried on the back of the laborer. I have no idea what one of these full baskets might weigh. Imagine the weight of a box of oranges and then estimate how many of those boxes would fit into one of the baskets. Incredible.


He scales a ladder, best seen in the first photo, with the basket on his back and dumps it into the huge truck. They are then delivered to packing houses and shipped to various parts of the world. The next time you are in the supermarket and buy fruit you will note that a great deal of it comes from Latin America. These guys picked and packed it for you for 10 pesos an hour. That is about 75 cents, American, by today's exchange rate.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.