Ahmed Ali once came across an infant’s body wrapped in a plastic bag. The 36-year-old informed the police and then carried on working.
Another day, it was a gold-coloured bangle. “We don’t find riches,” he says, but that time he pocketed it.
His job as a sweeper in the megacity of Dhaka means he sees the Bangladeshi capital as few others do. He starts work in the early morning – about 2am-3am – when the streets are dark and quiet, and keeps going until 8am. Then he returns home, to an area called Sutrapur Bazar.
The walled compound is known as the “Sweeper Colony”: a place where 51 households live together, each family with one member or more employed as sweepers – a…