Panen Padi

Harvesting the Rice Padi! 

So I returned to Bali in May and was so lucky to meet the ladies harvesting rice in the field opposite my accommodation.

I took these images from my luxurious accommodation in Ubud. The women had spent the whole day harvesting rice, right at me doorstep!

I felt so conflicted, my heart was saying ‘Get out there and give them a hand’. 
My head says ‘Ignorant Bule tourist! Stick to your lane!’
I decided not to bother them. What help would I be anyway? But it goes against the ‘grain’ for me. Harvest time means all hands on deck!
Being in the rice reminds me of how fundamental carbohydrate has been to the advancement of human civilisation!

By the next afternoon 6 ladies had proceeded to reap the entire field. Green rice stalks were collected into large piles at either end of the wet padi where archaic looking threshing machines were set up and soon chugging away the chaff from the grain.

  

Rice harvest in Bali is not a brutal assault on the land. Offerings are made, space is left for birds, for frogs, even rats and mice have a place within the Padi… Prayers are offered for balance and harmony in the Padi, ducks march out through the mud, consuming excess invertebrate life, songs are sung, sacks of rice delicately slung into piles of produce by the end of the day. People will eat.