I walked over where these women were planting. They began to laugh when they saw me kick off my sandals, put my Nikons down on top of a low dike, and wade into the paddy. I asked the woman closest to show me how to plant the rice seedlings. They were all hysterical; laughing, yelling back and forth to other groups of women planting across the wide expanse saying things like “Hey, we have a white ox”. I smiled but didn’t laugh and tried to be the very best student I could.

In a few minutes I kind of had it down and was handed my own clump of tender young rice plants and began reaching down into the warm, muddy water that was about 8 inches deep and gently push the roots of the rice seedling into the mud.

There were a few men around, the bosses, and the buffalo drivers, and they watched me for a minute or two, shrugged their shoulders, and went on with what they were doing.

I tried planting as fast as the women and failed miserably. I was getting sunburned and they rubbed mud on my shoulders and arms. I worked feverishly in the heat for a few hours and then I heard the shout “Kana” (food: lunch) echo across the field and I followed the women to a little hummock above the paddies where a huge Asoro tree stood shading the dry earth.

One group of women and men eat lunch out in the open near the paddy.