Farming As a Family

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We spent the day on a rice farm called Living Land, a hands-on go at all fourteen stages of rice production. From ploughing a paddy field with a water buffalo (Hat initially thought it was a big pink pig because it was pink and had piggy ears), to planting the young shoots, to harvesting with a sickle to threshing, carrying and dehusking and winnowing. It was a proper practical farming experience and it was amazing to hear that 20% of the rice in Laos is still made in this traditional labour intensive way.
We all wore paddy hats and were given a bamboo pole to help our balance as we walked along the thin and very slippery mud banks that enclosed each paddy field. As you can imagine, we all got very muddy and this was all part of the fun. We even got to use a very old wooden cogged machine for crushing sugar cane juice, two people on either side of a long post which we walked and pushed around in a circle.
They also showed us how they blacksmith their own metal tools and split and weave bamboo to make various equipment. There was high level of self made things including all the hits and roofing.
Finally, we sat down to a meal of assorted ricey things. The steamed rice was delicious, as were the sweet rice pancakes. Ed enjoyed the rice puff crackers and Hat liked sweet rice which had been made in the shape of lotus flower (looked decidedly like a poppy head to me). None of us liked the fermented rice wine that was passed around in a clay pot. Speaking of clay pots, Ed and Hat have both referred to Pol Pot as Clay Pot!
As we've travelled over the past 11 weeks, we've seen glimpses into what life may have been like for our ancestors by in Britain: working together as a family, strong communities and all relatives close by, great practical skills, working with what nature provides to create what's needed, low impact on the environment and spending a great deal of time to find and prepare food and shelter. It was very interesting to hear the views of the guest house owner back in Cianjur, Indonesia, who described the implications of modernisation on his country which centred around the need to work for money rather working to live. The two are worlds apart. Cas and I have reflected on this change in society and we can see more clearly now that the many visible benefits of modernisation in the West have reduced other things like close community, self sufficiency, practicality, appreciation of simple things. There is certainly a dominance of 'achievement' over the more harmonious and older notion of 'fulfilment'. It really does seem to us that our ancestors would have felt higher levels of fulfilment compare to today's Western society at large; the East seems to be following suit. Travelling certainly does broaden the mind.

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