For the last two days I have planted rice, first in my host’s fields and then in the field of his friend. I have been walking barefoot, calf-deep in the mud and water, employing the technique I had been taught: Using my right hand, I’d extract two rice stalks, along with their roots, from a densely packed hunk of sod that I carried in my left hand, and then use my thumb to press the stalks into the soil. After I had adequately mastered this technique, there were still a variety of subtleties that my Thai companions in the field did their best to illustrate: One should position one’s hand with fingers pointing down when separating the stalks so as not to necessitate turning the stalk to utilize the thumb-press planting method. One must be ever mindful of the entirety of the row, remembering the line between two points is always straight but the line between one hundred points can meander embarrassingly. One must try to keep one’s steps between the lines where rice will be planted; remembering rice planted in a footprint will likely be underwater.
After the field was fully sown, I sat beside Toon, my Thai co-worker, on a pile of coconuts in the back of a speeding pickup, both of us sweaty and covered in a fine layer of dirt in spite of our attempted ablutions, and I watched the farms and the city streets roll by while the wind beat against my face and I wondered why this moment felt so normal.
Wow.
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