| caption: |
dilapidated house and fields |
| text: |
The rice has been planted already and small green blades shoot up out of the dry soil. Some banana trees stand in the fields. Only one field is apparently not planted and the field hut is slightly dilapidated. In it is one of the big storage baskets half full of rice. Niampong explains that this belongs to a man (182) in whose household there was a recent bad death. A small boy drowned while fishing. Thereupon the man deserted his house and left all his belongings behind. He cannot even use the rice in the field hut nor can anyone else. Now he will live through the winter on the rice which other villagers give him. The new fields have not even all been burnt down and Niampong is very surprised to hear that in Wakching people generally first plant the new fields and then the old ones. |
