All Hands

Who will help me reap the harvest?

I tried to find my one long sleeve shirt that I had been insane enough to bring to Southeast Asia because those were the instructions. Not what I had in mind when I packed my under-packed suitcase but--everyone, Marting instructed--was to wear one to keep grasses from irritating their skin. I grumbled as I searched because it didn't make any sense to me why anyone would want to start harvesting anything at 8am. By nine o'clock the sun starts cooking the residents of Doi Saket and to be out in the field with long sleeves, long jeans, and rags covering any of your exposed face is masochistic.

((folds arms)) not I said, the duck.

The Lahu students had planted an acre of rice to curb the exorbitant cost of commercial rice and the short, lush green that had greeted us on our Thailand arrival was now heavy and golden. Most of them were only used to mountain rice harvesting but they (said Gloria) were excited to try flat ground harvest; to be just like the Thai. The event went up on the white board, set in appointment stone. Friday. 8:30. Rice Harvesting. Be there. Kenny bubbled the night before and the morning of and I continued grumbling. I grew up in the wrong era for this.

Morning of, hot and invariably bothered, the GoEd crew and Bryce headed out to the fields. I grabbed a rag to follow in tow with the harvest professionals and surveyed the labor I could already tell was harder than any cherry picking I'd done. But I picked up my sickle and grabbed each stalk, trying to cut them with ease of our teachers. The Lahu were incredibly supportive (and fast), smiling at us even though we were slowing them down and showed us how to cut more than one stalk at the same time; how to gently stack them in criss-cross piles that would be easy to pick up. I tried cutting more than one stalk but I kept cutting the closest one too long and the farther ones too short, making an uneven mess of my bunches. To add insult to injury, Marting had to come through behind me and cut all the stray grasses that had gotten away from me. Courtesy gave way eventually, and the Lahu began working around us but we were out there together, all of us from everywhere, which we haven't had the luxury of experiencing since the students returned from practicum. Ryan sat in a field and had Burmese suncream applied to his face and we took epic pictures of him in his grass hat.

Of anybody, Bryce hung in there best-- till the very, very end--, whereas before the field was cleared, I had wandered away to get water and some shade and found the comforts of non-labor too tempting. I kept encouraging myself by thinking of different fruit harvesting scenarios that I'd be awesome at. Apples had no chance against this kind of industriousness, so between the spaces of my mind justifications, I brought water to the field weary. When I returned to my sickle, I saw the GoEd-ers also abandoning their posts and decided the rice had won against the West. Maybe if it had been early morning the scenario would have been different, but I didn't mind too much. We don't always have to win at everything.