A woman waved at me with a bunch of paddy saplings in her hands. She was signalling that I may help her out.
The men flattening the mud with their plough burst into laughter.
Will this man dare help us out? That’s what I imagined they were saying.
For a moment I stood there, thinking what I’d do. Born and raised in the Netherlands, I had never seen a paddy filed before. Together with two other men from the United Kingdom and Canada, I took up the challenge.
“You can join them,” said our guide, who was our companion for the Pharping-Bungmati hike.
Together, we took off our shoes, rolled our pants and prepared to jump into the mud.
How far will my bare feet sink into the mud? Will I be able to keep my balance? How hard is it to actually transplant the saplings? These are some of the questions to which I found answers, to some immediately, and to others after a while.
We first tried to flatten the soil with a plough, a very labor-intensive work it was, we found out. My muscles were sore after a few laps with the plough, and then I decide to help out the women.
One woman gave me instructions, with her hands, on how to do it right. I tried it, but unfortunately, the sapling came out immediately. I tried it again by taking more saplings, and pushing them down deeper under the soil. This time also I had limited success.
Meanwhile, the women continued working, and suddenly I realised that they had finished two more rows while I had just finished planting a few saplings.
Soon it was lunch time. Our co-planters for the day offered us curry and local rice beer (chhyang). It was only a matter of a few minutes, and off they were again.
When I am back home in the Netherlands, every time I get rice from the supermarket, I’ll remind my self where rice actually comes from!
