Wout and Sarah's Big Adventure : Working in the fields - Traditional rice harvesting

On Tuesday I went out into the our host families field to harvest the rice.

Here's my experience in getting the rice from the fields before we get it on our plates.

I started helping in the second shift from 10 am. The hired worker do two shifts everyday, 6am-10am then 10am-3/4pm. The hired workers work really hard and do very long days for about 12 hours 6 days a week.

So my start was time at 10 o'clock and i walked with our host mother for about 20 minutes to reach the family field. The family told me not to cut the grass down because the sickle is too sharp for amateurs like I am. My job would be to carry the grass once it had been cut. None of the workers did speak English so i just had to wait around till it was my turn, great time to make some snaps of them doing their work. After about a little 45 minutes it was my turn to start do some work. First i laid out the plastic cover sheets where the harvest machine is getting put on so the rice doesn't disappear into the soil.

workers doing work

more cutting workers

Waiting till i can start doing something

Setting up the machine

After everything had been set up, and they started doing their job, I decided to help the workers to collect the grass and carry it to the machine and take the harvest grass to the spots where they putting it down. This simple task went on for about 2 hours and then i heard a snapping sound... and there was quietness in the hot rice fields, the machine has broken. the bolt has snapped off from the pedal where they where standing on to get the drum spinning. So there where two breaks going on at the same time.

After a phone call and a small 30 minutes it was all fixed and ready to go, back to work Englishman as they called me!

Soon after the break down all the grass in the big field had been collected and been spread out to dry, we had to collect all the rest from the lower field and carry it up, This is quite an good cardio workout, after about 3 more hours of collecting and of course a lot of sweat!

setting up the machine

all set up

The break when something broke

Sarah and our host sister Prabha came with more water and food, beaten rice and cauliflower curry is what they put me on the plate. Beaten rice is cooked rice that is then squashed, so they call it beaten. then it is dried, its like oats but then crunchy. While on the break i decided not to walk anymore up and down the fields or even worse trough the muddy bit where the last rice grass needed to be collected from and i was allowed to finish for the day and i walked home with Sarah and Prabha.

After arriving home the fun was not over yet, i had to wash the clothes which where covered in mud and clay. Of course there is no washing machine so this had to be done all by hand. While washing my clothes the workers had finished everything on the field and put the rice in big bags, what weights about 30/35 Kg they carried it up 4 sets of stairs and dumped it on the roof to be spread out and dried for the coming year, even the woman who are not coming higher than my chest when they stand next to me did carry these big bags up to the roof, so i had to try it myself and ran down from the roof to collect a bag and bring it all the way up.

Finally after this last task the Chia tea was waiting for us and everyone could now rest and go home.

So now i understand where the rice comes from before it ends up on my plate, instead of buying it in the supermarket.

The following day the family asked me to help closer by the house to collect the dried rice grass what they give the cow, me being Wout doesnt say no to do some manual labour and helped a few hours in the afternoon.
Again there was no English so i had to look and learn. Collect a bit of grass get a few (grasprietjes I don't know the English word) and wrap it it around the bunch. after about 7 or 8 being done they get put on a big pile and wrapped up by a rope and carry it to the house, and put it down next to the cow shed.