EARLY NOVEMBER UPDATES
These are random updates but it’s a blog, right?
I got bit by my first centipede. It was in the night and in my sleep. I had a familiar “hot” feeling of being bitten on the top of one foot, assuming it was a mosquito, my foot typically hanging out the end of the short mattress. Then a while later (and who knows, because it was in my sleep) but my other foot had the same feeling, and then sooner or later I had to wake up because I was quite uncomfortable. I took a flashlight and looked at my feet, but no sign of a mosquito bite. My feet were intensely itching, but also just a little bit paralyzed with the feeling. I turned out the flashlight and lay back down, but it was impossible to get to sleep because from my knees downward, every couple of minutes my legs and feet would shake, almost like a spasm. And it didn’t stop. So I got up again and went into the bathroom and soaked my feet in cold water, which felt a little better. I probably stayed there about an hour until I felt I could get back to sleep. When I went back to bed I looked again with the flashlight and there was the centipede on the floor a few feet away. I killed it with the flashlight, but it sure didn’t want to die. The next day I told Mae and Pa (the Thai word is “takaap”), and they were very sympathetic. If Pa gets bitten by a centipede he’s apparently levelled for twenty-four hours, and in big pain.
Pa, by the way, is feeling much better and it’s great to see him with energy back (and just in time for harvest). For two or three weeks before harvest, everyday he worked on his fish traps. He makes all of them by hand, slivering bamboo, bending it into shape, finely threading the netting. The nets are stunningly beautiful, and he’s justifiably proud of them. A net will last about two to three years before he has to build a new one. They are not big nets, but a cylinder about three feet long. Fish swim into one of two chambers, and then can’t get back out. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but the fish he brings home each morning before dawn have also changed almost entirely in the last month. We’re back to the ones that I really love, especially a rather narrow fish around six inches long. These are fried a long time in hot oil so that we can eat them just crunch crunch, head tail and all. I am gathering Thai names for all the fish, but I look forward to my next trip to the Bangkok bookstores to see if I can find a book which will help cross reference the fish from their Thai names. For a person (me) who grew up in southern Wyoming not eating many fish (apart from trout), it now seems like such a luxury to live every day around a bounty of fresh water fish. In the mornings I like to sneak in the back door of Mae and Pa’s house, into the kitchen, and nibble on the fish from the night before (cooked foods – leftovers - are never refrigerated, but kept under a sort of netting, like sleeping under a mosquito net). With rice in the rice cooker, and leftovers under the netting, there’s almost never a time when one can’t forage an impromptu meal.
One more thing about Pa and that’s that I’ve noticed he’s moved his daily activities (like making the fish traps) from the covered porch at the front of the house to the garage and rice barn at the back of the house. And I think I know why! Pa is basically not a big talker, not a big socialiser (Mae is just the opposite). Right now (for reasons I won’t go into here), we’ve lost three-year old Tey (back to Bangkok) and six-year old Boom from across the street (whose parents went to live in another part of Thailand with the paternal grandparents as opposed to the maternal grandparents). Our child population has temporarily dwindled from five to three, and especially in the case of losing Tey (who is so funny!), I think Pa’s interest in being in the front of the house (which is the primary social place, and the primary place for kids) has dwindled. I fully expect Tey to be back, and probably Boom, but until then I think Pa will stay in the back. He loves the kids; I think more than the adults. I don’t blame him. They are far better than TV!
One more thing briefly, yet again admitting to ignorance. But in writing about the Two White Cows I failed to understand one very important thing. Cows are lawn mowers! In a place where everything grows at a rapid rate (especially in rainy season), and never stops growing, on farmsteads it’s imperative to keep the grasses down. No one here has lawn movers, but they have cows, and the cows are moved throughout the day and then tied, restricting their grazing. Mae (unlike her sister-in-law across the street) is meticulous with her two white cows, making sure that they graze in exactly the area she wants. The other day one escaped, she yelled, and it obeyed. Amazing (the cows can be very stubborn). Father’s sister number two, Boom’s grandmother (who I think I’ve written about), the person who is quite small and has two huge white cows, is not on par with Mae. Her cows are always getting untied and creating havoc. And by the way, when Boom moved away, the next day a truck came and they carted away one of the two huge cows. She sold it!
Friday, November 6, 2009
time, and the beginning of harvest
TIME, AND THE BEGINNING OF HARVEST
Time seems to be passing in a very unusual way right now. I went to Laos by bus to get a new visa, about a four or five day trip altogether, and when I came back everything was very different. For one thing, it hadn’t rained but a tiny bit, so the ground was hard again like baked clay, and getting a shovel to go through was difficult. Also, people are going around in coats, sweaters, and stocking caps! “It’s the start of winter,” someone told me, not understanding at all why I might find the statement funny. There’s definitely a turn in the weather, and even I happily put on a long sleeved shirt the other night, but “winter”. No.
But the biggest changes are in the rice fields. It seems like such a short time ago, maybe about three weeks, maybe four, and I was walking in the back fields of the Yindichati farm and I was so surprised to see that some of the rice was starting to seed. And then about ten days later the color of almost all the fields changed in a dramatic way, from mid-summer, mid-rainy season intense grassy green to a tinge of yellow. It may not sound like a lot, but when the landscape’s flat and rice grows in all directions, a change in the color of the land vis a vis the sky is a very big change. The color of the sky looks different, set against a plain of greenish-yellow. And it all seemed to happen in just a couple of days.
Now, back from Laos, the harvest is already five or six days in. The villages are quiet and feel almost abandoned because everyone is working early morning till dark with sickles in the fields. One of the few signs of life is the yellow of the harvested rice set out on the paved roads to dry in the sun, and people with long wooden rakes raking the rice back and forth so that all the rice gets uniformly dried.
Harvest, I think, has come early this year. Last year I was here for harvest and it was a good three weeks into November, not the beginning of November, like it is now. People are happy because the rain has stopped - making it possible for harvest to happen - and the harvest is a good one. Pa’s leg seems to be holding up fine so far, and Mae’s back hurts (like everyone’s back). It’s a very no nonsense time of the year. There’s not a question about what everyone does each day, and harvest will continue for another three to four weeks. It’s a stunning amount of labor. Each day in Mae and Pa’s fields there are anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five people working, relatives and close neighbours (some people at seventy years old). There’s no way harvest can happen here without extended family.
Since going to Laos I’ve been working (writing), so I haven’t spent any time in the fields, though I want to. But the days have felt really weird. I’ll think that it’s one in the afternoon and then I’ll look at a clock and it’ll be ten in the morning, or even nine-thirty. The time each day is passing incredibly slowly; days feel especially long, and yet the dramatic change in the fields is happening so rapidly. Also, I look down at my arms and my skin is dry – not desert dry – but dry! So I bought lotion, which seems like a very odd thing to do based upon the humidity of the last five months.
I guess I expected the change in seasons to happen slowly, but yet again I’m wrong.
Time seems to be passing in a very unusual way right now. I went to Laos by bus to get a new visa, about a four or five day trip altogether, and when I came back everything was very different. For one thing, it hadn’t rained but a tiny bit, so the ground was hard again like baked clay, and getting a shovel to go through was difficult. Also, people are going around in coats, sweaters, and stocking caps! “It’s the start of winter,” someone told me, not understanding at all why I might find the statement funny. There’s definitely a turn in the weather, and even I happily put on a long sleeved shirt the other night, but “winter”. No.
But the biggest changes are in the rice fields. It seems like such a short time ago, maybe about three weeks, maybe four, and I was walking in the back fields of the Yindichati farm and I was so surprised to see that some of the rice was starting to seed. And then about ten days later the color of almost all the fields changed in a dramatic way, from mid-summer, mid-rainy season intense grassy green to a tinge of yellow. It may not sound like a lot, but when the landscape’s flat and rice grows in all directions, a change in the color of the land vis a vis the sky is a very big change. The color of the sky looks different, set against a plain of greenish-yellow. And it all seemed to happen in just a couple of days.
Now, back from Laos, the harvest is already five or six days in. The villages are quiet and feel almost abandoned because everyone is working early morning till dark with sickles in the fields. One of the few signs of life is the yellow of the harvested rice set out on the paved roads to dry in the sun, and people with long wooden rakes raking the rice back and forth so that all the rice gets uniformly dried.
Harvest, I think, has come early this year. Last year I was here for harvest and it was a good three weeks into November, not the beginning of November, like it is now. People are happy because the rain has stopped - making it possible for harvest to happen - and the harvest is a good one. Pa’s leg seems to be holding up fine so far, and Mae’s back hurts (like everyone’s back). It’s a very no nonsense time of the year. There’s not a question about what everyone does each day, and harvest will continue for another three to four weeks. It’s a stunning amount of labor. Each day in Mae and Pa’s fields there are anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five people working, relatives and close neighbours (some people at seventy years old). There’s no way harvest can happen here without extended family.
Since going to Laos I’ve been working (writing), so I haven’t spent any time in the fields, though I want to. But the days have felt really weird. I’ll think that it’s one in the afternoon and then I’ll look at a clock and it’ll be ten in the morning, or even nine-thirty. The time each day is passing incredibly slowly; days feel especially long, and yet the dramatic change in the fields is happening so rapidly. Also, I look down at my arms and my skin is dry – not desert dry – but dry! So I bought lotion, which seems like a very odd thing to do based upon the humidity of the last five months.
I guess I expected the change in seasons to happen slowly, but yet again I’m wrong.
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