At one point on the pirogue tour, we pulled up to a wet 'sand bar' to witness some families digging through mud, collecting small clams to eat and sell. We joined right in, digging away and collecting our own pile of mollusks (okay, I honestly only contributed two to the bucket). It was dirty work, and there was a girl as young as 4 1/2 digging and collecting as well. The most amazing part were the conditions... all of us promptly sank into the mud as soon as we stepped off the boat. I went down a bit more than the others and had to be rescued as I tried to pull myself out of sucking mud that was knee deep! Anyway, the work is hard and the ladies and kids were all smiling and seemed to be having a good enough time. Unbelievable to me how easy my life is. I wanted to clean the kids up and take them away from such back breaking work.
