Cashew Kindergarten

A week ago in Mangalore, India,  we visited a cashew processing facility. It seemed only women worked there; the hours were long and the work noisy and hard. One thing was sure: after you visited you’d never eat a cashew again without thinking of those women’s labours. The facility had a kindergarten for the workers’ preschool children. A few of them warmed to having visitors and rushed to the gate, but none of them was as precocious as this little girl, who posed beautifully and burst into laughter when anyone showed her the picture on their camera screens. She was moving about all the time, a bundle of energy, so it was hard to get her in focus, but I was happy with this one with her lovely smile and the frames of her hands.