BACK TO NORMAL?

I'm back now in Prasat and everything feels much the same as when I left a few weeks ago. The thousands of people who came here from villages near the border have now returned home. The night sky is once again peaceful and quiet. I can read the Bangkok Post online, and know that everything is still not right between the two governments, but for now there is calm.

The far bigger news around here is that the rains have started. When I left Thailand the grass in my front yard was a few inches tall; three weeks later it was a foot and a half! People are hustling to plant the fields. Last year we planted rice on May 18, and this year we will most likely plant on May 9. Days are still extremely hot, and the lateritic soil still hard as rock. But every few days there is a rain, and some of the rains have been big rains. When I left the dominant color was brown (after six months of dry season); now it is a pale, tender green.

This is in many ways Pea's favorite time of the year. When the rains first start to come, and the earth is still baked hard, a late afternoon or evening rain means that all the life that has been living underground – the frogs, crabs, snakes, crickets – come to the surface, or just near the surface. If big dark clouds start to gather late afternoon, you can feel the excitement in the air. People will prepare and eat dinner quickly, then head out to the fields with flashlights on their heads.

Now is a forager's dream.