rice

being in ubud at the resort here where twenty three of us have gathered for a sacred circularities hoola hoop retreat is quite the different experience then the two months up north alone by the sea, temples, villagers...at the moment i am sitting outside in the open air pavilion in the center of bali in ubud, watching the group of six women working together harvesting the rice from the paddies that are dotted among the different areas of the resort which has over the years made extensions in all direction. it is a scene i had been hoping to witness this trip, but since the cycle is usually 3-4 months, when i came they had just harvested, and so i didn't think i would find a paddy that still had rice ready for harvesting. the most impressive thing for me is watching the team work, always,...people just do things together, in couples, whether it is sieving the sand or beating the long sheaves of rice onto a board in a big basket so that the grains fall into it, and then throwing the stems on the ground later to be burnt. lots of giggles and chit chat between the six of them as they work at a comfortable pace together, but still physically demanding, with three of them bending down all the time to cut the sheaves and gathering a big enough quantity to toss the bundle into the arms of her "partner" that catches it and turns around and bangs it four or five times onto the board in the big basket, that has a tall screen around 2/3 of it so the grains don't fall out, and then they just drag the big basket by the big bamboo handle, through the field wherever they are harvesting.

Now on the way to lunch it was possible to watch the women ‘winnowing”(?? I may have just made up a word!) the rice from the chaff (here too!) as they emptied out the big basket of rice grains onto a big sack in the middle of the field. They then proceeded to scoop onto a woven bamboo tray with two inch sides a quantity of rice and then in circular movements horizontally swished it around about 3 times, and all the stems and leaves rose to the top as the heavier smaller grains stayed on the button of the tray. She then removed the few stems and dumped the tray of grains into the empty rice sack. This they did in twos…and when the bag was full, they placed a heap of the cut rice sheaves on top of it so that the rain that suddenly comes down, and which is coming down now, will not dampen the harvested grains. The sack is lifted by both women, (how many kilos are in those huge sacks of rice?!) and placed on the head (YES!!!!!!!!!!) on one of them, and she could even be my age!, and is carried to the rice company, where it is then spread out on the ground on big tarps and is raked every now and then so it can dry in the sun, and then again placed in sacks and sold to the people either by the sack or at kiosks, in smaller quantities. The day for harvesting is of course checked on the calendar, and since tomorrow is the new moon, today is an auspicious day for harvesting.

All very fascinating, for someone like me that opens up a plastic bag of a kilo of rice at home and measures out 2 cups to cook, without really knowing what was involved in growing the rice that I eat.