Golden ricefields

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived at Sav Samourn and Kepehleb’s home, perched on a hill and surrounded by cashew orchards and ripening rice fields. So much had changed since we visited last July. Most notable were the rows of rice plants weighted down with golden rice grains, ready to be pulled and plucked from their stems. The towering papaya trees and bushes of thorny pineapple plants were also bearing fruit. The sky was less bright, dotted with darkening masses of clouds and the shadows of parrots flocking to the ricefields in search of grain. The farmers had to shout at them to keep them from raiding and devouring the ricefields.

Sav Samourn’s eldest daughter was also getting older and more aware of her appearance. She was toying with a comb and a mirror when I first caught sight of her. Sav Samourn told me she had cut her own bangs.

After lunch, Sav Samourn and her sisters gathered their baskets and hiked through the cashew orchards to the ricefields just beyond, to continue their harvest for the day. The ricefields were situated on a hill just above their home. From the hill you could see other hills and other houses perched on these hills beyond and other orchards and ricefields blooming with grain.

This was the first harvest of the year and the field being harvested belonged to Sav Samourn’s younger sister and her husband. Yet everyone pitched in to help with the harvest, including the younger children who looked after the babies under the shade of the cashew trees.

Sav Samourn and her two sisters worked their fingers among the rows, the grains falling effortlessly into the cup of their hands and straight into small, bamboo woven baskets. Once the small baskets were filled with grain, they would empty the baskets into larger baskets. Hour by hour, the mounds of golden rice grains grew, until they were ready to be carried away and stored in the threshing barn. The sounds of pulling and snapping were only disturbed by occasional chatter and the wailing of a hungry baby, carried on the back of an older sister or brother. Sav Samourn would unhitch the baby from the cloth krama, crouch in the middle of the rice fields, settle the baby on her lap, and croon while the baby sucked from her breasts. Her other sisters did the same once their babies also began crying, carried over by an older sibling. Once the feeding was done, they would hitch the babies back on the backs of their older siblings and return to the harvest.

They spent hours harvesting the fields, pulling grains and dispersing the dead grass that remained. Only when it grew dark did the sisters empty their last small baskets into the larger baskets and carried them home to the threshing barn with the younger children trailing just behind.

The kitchen also had something different hanging from the rafters - new baskets or kapaw, still white and newly woven, all different sizes to match the size and height of Sav Samourn and Kepehleb’s three older daughters. These baskets are one of the most important items the family own. Kapaws are used daily to carry newly harvested rice grains, potatoes dug from the ground, chopped sugar cane, and other items that needed to be transported. Kepehleb prefers to make the baskets himself. It is less expensive than buying them from someone else, which is the common practice for many of the villagers these days.

It was early afternoon. Clouds were gathering in the sky and Kepehleb was finishing the weaving of some of the baskets. With a sharp knife, he separated the thinner pieces of bamboo from the thicker, green outer layer. He then began to whittle the bamboo pieces until they became almost paper thin and malleable enough to be woven. As Kepehleb did this, their second eldest daughter imitated him with her own small knife, working her small fingers in the same way. Their eldest daughter climbed atop the motorcycle parked nearby, playing with the handles and peering at her own reflection in the rearview mirror. Sav Samourn was busy threshing the rice, separating the chaff from the grain. She would shovel the grains from the sacks onto large bamboo trays and shake the trays vigorously until the chaff began to separate.

Suddenly the sky shook and rumbled and drops of rain fell around them. Sav Samourn retreated under the threshing barn and continued with her work. Kepehleb withdrew into the kitchen and continued with his weaving. It was a full moon that night and Kepehleb worked late into the night in the kitchen, weaving the bamboo baskets, while his wife sat at the entrance of their bedroom door shining a flashlight, keeping him company. Old Cambodian tunes played in the background on a transistor radio placed on the bamboo floor.