Ndong.

In his story there's one night unlike any other shift. Past kilometer two hundred, a landslide from the rainy season left the local stopped in the middle of the forest, nothing around but trees. Two hundred-odd people climbed down onto the ballast, and within half an hour three fires were already burning. Ndong stood at the edge of the embankment all night, barely moving or speaking. He didn't need to say anything. When they cleared the line at dawn and people climbed back on, he was the last to do it.

Ndong's family doesn't live in a house: they live in a forest community of more than six hundred people, and he knows almost every name even if he doesn't recognize every face. When he goes up in the dry season he doesn't need to carry much, because everything's already there: a place to sleep, food shared out, people who've been waiting for him for months. And whatever he does carry — on the train, in the forest, wherever — he makes sure it's little and that it lasts. In that community of more than six hundred people, nobody carries more than they can bear on foot.