Potato Pickers

One of my goals in Thailand has been to join in some farming activities. How could I say I had really been here otherwise? Yesterday I finally got my chance.

Rice, of course, is Thailand's staple crop and staple food. A majority of the fields around our village are rice fields for a good portion of the year. But after the rice is harvested in November and December, potatoes are planted. Potatoes, being a "New World" food, are clearly not indigeneous to Thailand. However, with increasing globalization comes Western snack food, and Thailand is now full of potato chips. We can buy Lays not 20 feet from our front door.

This month the potatoes are being harvested. They aren't sold in the markets in our town, but are sold to Lays and other chip factories a couple of hours west. One of my co-teachers, Waewnapa, lives in a house bordering the fields a few kilometers north of our house. We rode our bikes up there in the morning and spent a little over an hour helping to pick.

It was a fun process -- as observed by someone who only had to do it for one hour, of course, as a full day's labor I'm sure it's backbreaking. A machine called a kuboda (not a Thai word) was operated by the owner of the field. It turned the rows of potatoes inside out, so that the potatoes were lying on top of the dirt instead of underneath. The pickers (paid 100 baht per day, or about $2.50) followed behind with buckets, gathering all the sellable ones and discarding the rest. (Rotton ones were tossed to the edge of the field, while ugly but edible ones were put into pockets.)

You might notice the difference between the Thai people's clothing and the foreigners'! Thai people don't like the sunlight because it makes your skin darker, so they wear multiple layers to make sure that no skin is exposed. I would wilt in one of those outfits after 15 minutes, so I compromise with a t-shirt (must cover shoulders) and mid-length pants. The hats were lent by my co-teacher's mother, and although I first hadn't wanted to wear it, I realized quickly that it was very useful. The Thai women were very concerned about my white skin turning dark in the sun, but I assured them I had put on plenty of "cream." They seemed a bit skeptical.

In the photo on the left, the mountains are nearly invisible because of the heavy smoke in the air that I mentioned in an earlier post. In the photo on the right, Waewnapa is dressed in blue next to me in the field.

At the end of the morning, everyone broke for lunch. We rode off with a large back of potatoes in my bicycle basket. Last night's dinner was baked potatoes, canned baked beans, and salad!