“Let’s go to Tambo part 3” Experience Note-#3
When half of the harvesting was finished, suddenly a village man said to us, “ Do not drop the rice!”.
“Hm?!,” We were frozen and then, started to look around on the ground. What we saw was that many straws were spread before us and some rice ears had been dropped here and there.
As we, the volunteers, were finished up bundling the rice, we did not notice that we had dropped 1 or 2 ears of rice and had moved on.
Surprisingly, about 130 grains of rice are harvested from one ear. Village men dealt with them very carefully, and picked up every dropped ear of rice. That was the moment when we felt the villager’s affection for their rice. After this incident, we continued reaping the rice carefully, trying not to drop even a single rice ear.
After we finished the rice harvesting, we got into the paddy field with the village men and checked whether there we had dropped any rice. We checked the paddy field, around the paddy field and around the path where we dried the rice, looking very carefully. It was nearly sunset by the time the local people and the volunteers finished picking up the rice without any left behind. The next task was to dry all the rice we bundled under the sunshine.
Villagers treat even a single grain of rice with extra care. To them, the paddy field is their property, and the rice is their treasure. We could feel the importance of the blessings of nature and the affection for every single grain of rice in those 3days.
End.
By Cordination Volunteer: Tomoko, Yatabe