At first glance life along the rails looks normal except for the fact that it occurs along the rails. Here children play and mothers nurse their babies, and the more enterprising sell vegetables and fruits, or do other things that comprise what is called making a living.

It is pretty much like what one would see in a normal community.

But don’t be fooled by the air of “normalcy” that tends to mislead those who see the rails only from a “safe” distance. Rail life is certainly not normal.

It is along the rails where children learn to, in the words of singer-songwriter Wency Cornejo, “sleep-eat-work in this cruel life” way before they could learn the three Rs – because they simply have to. It is here where children learn to read cards and coins before they could tell A from B – because they have very little hope of rising from the dung heap.

The people along the Northrail sure may manage a smile every now and then, but they live in fear.

And they have a lot to fear. Many of their neighbors’ “homes” have been demolished to give way to a “development” project funded by the Chinese government, and they are the ones who are next in line.

They “live” where no right-thinking person would like to live because their “homes” had been demolished before. The railway is their last resort. It has become their life, in a society which declares life to be merely a privilege of the “blue-blooded.”

And they stand to lose that, without any assurance that they would have a decent place to move to.

Tong-its (a local card game; the 
"national game" at funerals), railway style

Open "bathroom"

They walk where the train passes: 
only those new to the place die there, they say.

Marketplace along the rails

Where there's smoke, there's somebody 
cooking - or a train passing.