Rice Harvest

In Thailand it is socially unacceptable to climb on the table or drop food on the floor but it that is nothing compared to stepping over, or heaven forbid, on rice. When eating, every grain is carefully transported and messy eaters just don't exist- (except in my family. ) In Thailand we were introduced to a different cultural mind set, community first, respect elders above all else, the group mindset as a posed to the single entity. And was with these ideas that I stepped reverently onto the Nepali rice field, contemplated food for the family for half the year and set to " cuttigo le Daan" (cutting the rice).

Rice is, like most grains, a kind of grass,. The rice grain shiney and white encased in its brown fibrous husk. Each husk and grain growing with perhaps 40 others on stem of rice grass and each plant home to 5 or 6 stems. I grasped the first plant with my left hand and every rice grain rustled dramatically reminding me how easy it was to dislodged the precious grain. Steadying the plant with my left hand I sliced the plant off at the ground height with the rice knife and then turned to carefully place it flat behind me with the tidy rows generated by the prolific industry of my Nepali coworkers. I watched them slicing and placing at skillful pace Gibbering Nepalese and not spilling a seed.

4 days later we  returned to gently gather the dried plants into bundles , and tie them  with a twist of straw (barrals) . A circular patch in the rice field had been weeded and and slurry of water and buffalo dung massaged into the soil resulting in a smooth dust free surface to work on.  Taras favorite part was to carry the barrals laden with rice to this circle and carfully lay the barrals grain parts innermost. In the centre was a stone apon where the grain was seperated( zartigo le Dan) from the plant by bashing it on a Stone (Lukey  loved this part). Papa  formed the barrals into  a hay stack and the rice was carried home to be dried in the sun and later separated fronts the husks at the rice mill. 

During the threshing most of the grain is dislodged, but some remains on the plant. So a few days later all the barrals were taken home from the field and restacked They will be unstacked again next week and thrown under the feet of oxen tied to stake and driven around and around  in circles over the straw. This aerates the fodder before restacking loosely for cow food for the rest of the winter but also dislodges the last remaining grains of rice which are carefully swept up and saved. 

Each grain of rice is so tiny but together they feed the whole of Asia.

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