🌾 Comminity Rice Harvest in Our Town 🌾 Neighbours Helping Neighbours Food & Booze Included 🌾
🌾 When a small local farm has a Rice Harvest, Word goes out and Neighbours show up to help. 7 am start: and finish at Noon, Followed by a hot lunch.
We could have used 50 men to get this Hectare of land done in 1 morning but today about 40 showed up and some was left in the field.
Over half the field was knocked down by rain and wind making the work much slower than if it was standing up. So a great deal of the cutting was done bending over.
I've only ever been to 1 were no booze was included, Today we were offered shots of Seco Herrerano ( cheap white Rum ) fruit juice and water. Most of the men were hungover from a 3 day weekend party and not a lot of rum was being passed around.
But I've been to a couple harvests were everyone was polluted by noon, with a full-time bartender giving out shots non-stop for 5 hrs straight, washed down with " Chicha Fuerte " ( Fermented drink ).
The tool we use is called a " shrimp " ( Camaron ), Strap it over your hand, grasp a stalk of rice at the first leaf and pull it against the blade. Repeat thousands of times all morning. When it's laying on the ground laying all over itself much harder to sort out.
🌾 With luck it's cloudy day as no shade is available in an open field, Today was a mixed bag and buy noon the sun was blazing down on us. Hot and sweaty we were all ready to call it a day and eat.
Panamanians can talk, and they do almost non-stop, broken up with a yodel or 2 across the field to another worker.
Me...I just listen and concentrate on where I'm reaching and cutting, being far from an expert.
🌾 Large farms use combine harvesters but small farms have to do it manually, and to pay 40- 50 people to help harvest would not be cost-effective. A 100 Lb sack at this stage goes for around $20-$25 and the work has just begun for the farmer.
Now these bundles have to be dried, then hit with large sticks to break the rice off, followed by more drying in the sun on tarps till prfectly dry. You can break the rice free fron the shell by hand but its hard and time consuming, so probably takin to a piladora ( mechanical seperator ). Which gets most of the job done, then hand cleaned before ready to cook.
🌾 I have a few more photos but my internet is slow today and taking forever to upload, So I'll call it a wrap. Watch a movie and get to bed. Tomorrow could be a long day for me.
Thanks for reading and supporting my blog, I 💗 Comments...
thanks for Good information to give us......
What an interesting glimpse into everyday life!! These are the things I love seeing :) Thank you!!
Good Job
Great community vibe sure seems like its hard labor. I'll have more appreciation for my daily rice.
Awesome! Way different from the harvests in my country. :)