Borneo Day 6: Wednesday, July 26
Ripening rice field and a pink mosque in Barito Kuala Regency, South Kalimantan.
The counselor at SMAN 1 Mandastana was celebrating the birth of a new baby and invited us to his home, along with the other teachers. School would be let out early so the teachers could attend. After we had rested a bit from our morning teaching and had re-hydrated, Nazar drove us to his home.
A coal barge on the Barito River. Sorry that it’s a bit blurry – I took this from a moving car as we crossed the bridge.
He lived out in the country beyond the Barito River Bridge and past the river town we had stopped in a few days before. This was the furthest we went to the west. Nazar hadn’t been to his house before and had to call him a few times for directions and turn around a few times. Google Maps isn’t as accurate out here. I had the chance to observe people as they were beginning the rice harvest.
A field of rice ready to harvest and a blue mosque, out in the country of Barito Kuala Regency.
Rice can be grown twice each year in Indonesia. I’ll write about the process of planting and growing rice in a later post, but let me here talk about the harvesting. As the rice becomes ripe, the fields are allowed to dry and the rice heads and stalks turn golden, although never as golden as wheat. Some of the farmers use mechanical rice pickers (there is my obscure Star Trek reference for the day – what episode of the original series discusses Spock’s unfortunate accident with a mechanical rice picker?). Some still harvest by hand with machetes and carry the bundles to their house courtyards, where they use a hand-cranked threshing machine to separate the grains from the stalks (chaff). I saw quite a few of these threshing machines as we traveled today, as the harvest is beginning and farmers have brought them out to use. Once the grain is threshed, it is placed on top of the courtyard or on tarps by the road to dry. The farmers rake it around to help it dry faster. Then it is collected, bagged, and sold. We saw people on motorcycles carrying the bags, and stores by the roads selling the rice.
Harvested rice is laid out on tarps in the courtyard or driveway of the house (or sometimes at the edges of country lanes) to dry. The rice is raked frequently to aid in even drying. I’m not sure what happens if it rains (as it did later this afternoon).
We finally found the counselor’s house, by a rice field next to a pink mosque. This was his own rice field. We were welcomed into the house, where we removed our shoes and sat on the floor to eat the ceremonial meal.
Laying out tarps for drying rice. The wooden wheel-shaped object behind the farmer is a rice thresher. The stalks are placed inside and a crank is turned, causing the rice grains to be separated or threshed from the stalks. It is then placed on the tarps to dry.
The baby naming/presentation ceremony is an important one in Banjarese culture, and we were treated as honored guests. Different dishes were brought out on a carrying rack for us to choose from, as well as trays of the plastic water cups and steamed rice that he had grown and harvested himself in the field next door. The food was good. After the meal, as other people were beginning to arrive, we took photographs with the mother and mother-in-law and got to hold the baby.
Food for the baby naming ceremony. The blue plastic cups in the trays are sealed cups of purified water.
Nazar drove us back to the hotel to rest as clouds were beginning to gather.
The counselor’s rice field and the pink mosque next door.
The counselor’s house where the ceremony and meal took place. The mother, baby, and mother in law are on the porch. The rice field next door is his field, and we ate rice he harvested from it last year.
Getting to hold the baby. The father is to my left and the mother to my right. He is the counselor at SMAN 1 Mandastana.
The Elements Unearthed 