Khamma returned Thamuang after two weeks in Hong Kong and suddenly there was an emptiness in my apartment. It was short lived though because I had booked my Easter leave and was eagerly looking forward to spending a week's holiday at Owerrrouse. Very fortunately for me this coincided with the Songkhran festival which is the equivalent of the Thai new year, but more on this later.
The house looked splendid in the morning sunshine as our taxi turned into the lane and suddenly Hong Kong was a long way away. I changed into Thamuang attire of shorts, scruffy tee shirt and flip flops and at once I relaxed into the slow pace. The events over the next week were to be centred on Songkhran and temple fund raising. There was something going to happen everyday and most evenings, and if there was a lull we could go fishing or to Big C. I fastened my seat belt and jumped onto the Thamuang whirligig.
Although the weather was extremely hot I wanted to see the rice fields and the extent of what Khamma and her brother are intending to cultivate this year. They have extended the fields even further by doing what I recalled from my A level geography lessons, as 'slash and burn' technique, except nowadays it is more like 'bulldoze and burn', or more precisely 'Kamatsu / Caterpillar / JCB and burn'.
Creating more land to grow rice
The scene was unrecognisable from twelve months ago and the lunar type landscape just about doubled the land available for planting rice. From this they can expect to increase yields but whether they will make a healthy profit depends on the price they get at the market and the additional cost of labour they will need to employ to plant the rice in July and harvest it in November. You may remember last year Khamma's Mama experimented by planting a field of potatoes.
Unfortunately this was not a success and we can safely conclude that the Sroikham family are excellent rice farmers but will not be continuing to diversify into potatoes!
The old potato field
As we ambled around the fields I could sense that Khamma was mentally preparing for the hard work ahead and the plans about what to do with each field were spinning round in her mind. She enjoys the farming very much and it is marvelous to see her excitment when she is explaining what will happen here, and what she plans there. Although she knows she will be exhausted, she is immensely proud of what she does and wants to improve every year.
Eventually we came across a cluster of out buildings which housed a few pigs, chickens and cows and belonged to one of her many cousins. I have often remarked that nearly everybody in Thamuang appears to be related to one another, but the word 'cousin' is often used to mean a special friend as well as blood relation. Another mystery solved.
The noise of the rice threshing machine was coming from the largest shed. These machines are fascinating and for me they epitomise and bring together the skills the Thai people have as farmers with the ingenuity they have as engineers. There must be thousands of these machines in rural Thailand, but each one is special and needs creativity to keep them working to churn out the refined rice. You can almost feel the soul of the machine humming away as the raw grain is tipped in at one side and clean edible rice is spurted out at the other. It is the final process in the production of rice and as much work and care goes into this part as it does in the fields. It would be foolish of me to romanticise this too much, but when the rice is poured into a sack ready for the cooking, it marks the end of a remarkable journey for the rice and the people growing it. The rice growers are proud and determined and each day as they eat the rice, they are fuelling up to commence cycle again in a few weeks time. It could be easily written off as subsistence farming in the A level geography books, the government policies, the UN food programmes, but this ignores the individual passion and the collective concern the farmers of Thamuang have for their rice. It ignores the beautiful changing landscape as the rice matures through the rainy season. It ignores the co-operation between families and neighbours to make sure every last bag is collected. It ignores the meals sat outside in the evening warmth eating as a family with the fruit of labour being presented in many different ways through the recipes handed down from mother to daughter. There is so much more in a bag of Thamuang rice than just rice.
The remaining outbuildings reminded me of the nature of the ubiquitous 'garden shed' in England except here it is on a much bigger Thai scale. There is a reputation in the UK that the shed is a hideaway for the menfolk where they can drift into a timeless and possibly meaningless world of eccentricity without the nagging of the other and often better half. The latter knowing that at least if her husband is pursuing some mind numbing activity in the solitude and cosiness of the shed, at least he isn't up to any other mischief. Or is he?
Follow this link for an analysis of the different types of shed heads in the UK - http://www.backyardgardener.com/article/green/1577.htmThis collection of buildings had the same playground workshop feel about it. I found broken concrete casts of Buddhas, drying cow hides, tools, old cans of oil, pig pens, old clocks that hadn't worked for years, cobwebs, rickety chairs and a radio. Nothing much different from my granddad's shed from forty five years ago with his collection of old bikes, a work bench and the smell of oil. Even today my dad likes to keep a corner of the garage for the collection of gardening tools, old pots and pans and other stuff he cannot bear to throw away. He was very unhappy when his shed had to be pulled down about four years ago and in the clear out he unearthed old engines, tins of oil, tins of paint, tools and cobwebs, old clocks and radios! Same same?
The contents of a Thai man's shed
Hanging cow hide to dry for new drum skins
Later that evening we relaxed at Bung's house as everybody returned home from doing whatever they had been up to during the day. We ate a substantial amount of food and I couldn't help thinking about the journey the rice on the plate had been on. It was the end of the day but there was an exciting prospect of a week of fun, or sanuk as the Thai's call it. Bung announced that tomorrow he wanted to go fishing and have a BBQ. Sounds good to me. Up to him said Khamma.
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