Day 19 - Rice is Life

I'm back! Don't worry, there may have been some speculation that Matt had sold me for Beer Lao and taken over but it was unfounded. I'm sure he'll be back to guest edit again soon - or he'll start a rival blog...

Today we went to the Living Land experience to learn how to be rice farmers. A tuk tuk came to get us at 8am and after a bumpy 15 minutes we arrived and were given hats to wear - the hats were probably the most painful bit of the whole affair. Our guide today was La, a funny and kind guy who has been at Living Land farm for 6 years. The rice growing part of the farm is only run for food to support the 7 families who co-work it, the rice isn't sold on. As Lao people eat a lot of rice (every meal) the production is still large. The profits from the tour days helps to cover the costs of teaching 75 children in the local area English and about nature for free.

Before we went through the 14 stages of sticky rice production we learnt some other important skills. First up was weaving. On the farm this is done to make baskets etc but we weaved something that was supposed to be resemble a donkey. Mine was mostly done by the expert weaver helping with the session. He couldn't speak English and I can't speak Lao but laughter is universal so I understood what he thought of my weaving skills. (He was a retired farmer who found retirement boring so came back to teach idiots like me to weave. I didn't get that from his laughter code, La told us. Though he didn't call me an idiot) Next skill was blacksmithing to make tools, we were allowed to pump the fire but not to play with the hammer.

Then it was on to the paddy fields.

Step 1 - selecting the seeds
Basically you put an egg in a barrel. It'll sink. Then you pour in salt till in floats, remove the egg (give it to grandma) and put the seeds in. The good seeds will sink, less good float. The bad ones are given to the animals and the good ones rinsed for...

Step 2 - planting the seeds
Time to get dirty! We got knee deep into the soft mud and water and prayed not to fall over. La told us about a woman who fell in and multiple staff members had to work together to pull her out. I didn't need that shame. Actually we ended up at this stage also harvesting the seedlings for step 4.

Step 3 - ploughing the field
The most comedy step - see photo. It involved getting back into the mud and holding the plough whilst Rudolf the water buffalo pulled the plough around. He understands 3 commands - go, stop and turn. Luckily La and another farmer were in with us to help with the instruction as I'm not entirely sure our variations on the work 'hey!' Were actually the go command. Every lap and person change Rudolf would start very slowly but when he knew he was towards the end would speed up. This coincided with when the ground got more uneven but luckily no muddy casualties.

Step 4/5 - planting and watering the seedlings
Our carefully pulled up seedlings needed to be separated and planted separately, again in the muddy water. It's a clever system where all the fields are height staggered and by digging or closing channels you can flow water from top to bottom. The top level is fed by a waterfall.

Step 6 - harvesting
When the leaves dry out and turn yellow it's time to go. Funnily enough they did not let us loose with sickles so this was an observing step. Unlike...

Step 7/8 - thrashing and wafting
Using nunchucks we whacked bundles of harvested crop against a wooden board so the rice grains fall out. Lots of grassy bits and debris fall into the rice pile to so you then waft them with a paddle to blow the loose bits from the pile and leave the heavier grains.

Step 9 - packing and carrying
We tried out 3 different ways to carrying the rice. Two baskets on a plank over your shoulder, on your back and with the strap around your forehead (wtf?!). We only tried with a little bit of rice but when full it'd be about 60kg and can be carried for hours!

Step 10 - husking
Using a big foot powered pestle and mortar the husks of the rice are removed. It takes about an hour to do a kilo of rice so everyone on the farm has strong legs!

Step 11 - separating the husks and grains
The husks and grains are put into a basket and you shake and toss the basket so the lighter husks fly off. Apparently it's a 'ladies' job' and if you're rubbish at it you'll never find a husband as it means you're lazy. Matt was rubbish at it so he'll never get a husband.

Bonus Step 11B - grinding
Some of the rice is ground to make rice flour for noodles etc. This is a 2 person job involved an arm powered grinder. Again it takes about an hour per kilo to get it fine enough so at least the strong legs are balanced by strong arms

Step 12/13 - soaking and steaming
The rice needs to be soaked for at least 3 hours to take out excess starch. It's then rinsed a few times before being put into one of the baskets the weavers make to steam over a fire.

Step 14 - eating :)
After a tour of the vegetable garden we ate an array of rice goodies. Sticky rice obviously, then lotus flowers and rolls made from rice flour and sweet rice cookies. All with a super spicy dip of course. We were really hungry by this point after our farmer pretence so the food didn't last long.

All that was left was for us to get our certificates (Perfect for the CV) and catch our tuk tuk back.

The rest of the day was spent eating, looking for somewhere to print our flight tickets for tomorrow, trying to find a working ATM (lucky number 7!) and me buying used napkins from a restaurant cause I liked the design. A 5am alarm tomorrow to go to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.Read more