Learning to Farm

While living in the village for 2 and 1/2 days, we learned a lot, including how to farm in the rice fields!  We started working in the fields in the morning, had our breakfast, walked about 1/2 mile to wash the water buffalo, and were finished with this experience before noon.  Thankfully we had a few farmers/coaches/teachers to show us how to plow, hoe, and plant, but we also had some fun getting one another a little dirty!  After seeing thousands of rice fields throughout Indonesia, I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to get into one and learn part of the farming process here.

A beautiful view, but work to be done...

Eventually everyone got into the rice fields, but
there was a lot  of watching and playing :)

That isn't your normal "American" hoe!  It has a much broader blade
 and your arms will get pretty tired after swinging one for a day.  A
lot of the guys got in on this action along with plowing up the fields...

Yes, he is riding on the top of the plow! His body weight helps
to push the plow into the soil.  Its a little tricky to turn these water
buffalo around too.  After plowing and working up the soil, we did
a little bit of planting (see right). Definitely not as easy as it looks.
Its tough to get those rice stems/seedlings into the correct position
so they'll grow and stand strong.

Lots of support for the one man working.  Regardless, we all got
a little dirty , especially the water buffalo...

....so before our baths, we washed the water buffalo.  I'm sure they enjoyed getting clean, but the cool water was probably the most enjoyable and refreshing part of this bath.