India: Going to school in a mud desert

A revealing look at the schooling of children whose families work making salt in the mud deserts.

Every year, the monsoons turn the desert into a sea. When the rain stops, the water slowly sinks into the ground, leaving salt behind. Saltpan workers and their families then move into the desert.

They build houses and install pumps to bring salty water from under the ground into surface basins; water that will crystallize into six-sided salt cubes. Children move into the desert with their families and while their families work, they go to school.