Copra Mills Sand Stores

If you head down Chamakkala Road in Azhikode, you’ll find us at Copra Mills Sand Stores. It’s a pretty straightforward place. The air around here usually smells a bit like the sea or the damp ground, especially when we have big piles of sand sitting out. Working with sand means everything is always a bit gritty, and you find it in your shoes and your pockets at the end of every day. We spend a lot of time out in the open, watching the trucks get loaded up. The weather really dictates how our day goes; if it rains, everything gets heavy and messy, and if it's too dry, the dust flies everywhere. Azhikode is a nice enough place to work, and the people who come by are usually locals we’ve seen around for years. We don't have any fancy signs or big advertisements, just the piles of sand and a small place to sit out of the rain. It’s mostly just manual labor and keeping an eye on the gate. We start early in the morning when the light is just coming up and usually finish when it gets too dark to see what we’re loading. It’s not a complicated business, but it keeps us on our feet and moving. There’s always someone needing a load for a foundation or a patch of ground, so we stay fairly busy throughout the week. It's just a lot of sand and a lot of work.