Brutus new immediately he had a new, inexperienced driver at the helm and behaved accordingly. With the tossing of his widely horned head, his desire to waver off the line and on occasion the point blank refusal to move at all, I was finding him an uncooperative beast and a frustrating working companion. To add further insult to working injury this reluctant leviathan would constantly be involved in bovine flatulence, and those who have had to spend any length of time six feet down wind from such an animals ample, windy behind would agree a water buffalo's tail is an ideal place to pour a gallon or so of your favorite perfume.
At my present rate of progress I believed it would take nothing short of a small miracle to complete the morning's task of plowing the three tiers of rice fields before lunch. Fortunately that small miracle stood off to my right side in the form of Bapack, the owner of the buffalo plow I was presently wrestling with. This nervous, flinty eyed man stood with his mouth set in permanent, crooked concern as I struggled with the task at hand and his sinewy hand would often fall to the top of his shaking head while he emitted nervous giggles at his apprentices ineptitude. I felt I had become to Bapack what the water buffalo had become to me, a proverbial pain in the a.., so it now became time to hand over this rudimentary farm tool to a more qualified and competent operator. Brutus felt the hand and heard the voice of authority and together they slid off through the the muddy soil in unison.
Made, my host for this time, lives in a tiny village of about eighty occupants called Tista, situated on the outskirts of Tabanan, close to the river HO. Each family lives in a small walled compound that consists of two to six dwellings, generally a garden attached to the rear where pigs, chickens and vegetables are cultivated, and a rice store will complete the configuration usually taking up the centre of the enclave next to a small Hindu temple. I found myself here after chatting with Made who worked at the losmen I was staying and upon his invitation joined he and his family and their village during a very serious period.
The village of Tista occupies a complete hillside about two hundred meters away from their houses for farming, it running down to the banks of the Ho river. For the last few years the villagers have been experiencing heartbreaking frustration due to two plagues that have descended upon them. The first is an infestation of fresh water crabs that have deposited themselves in all of their fields and eat any new rice shoots that appear. No larger than a big mans thumb nail they have been born from the surrounding fresh water tributaries that course through their area. There are literally thousands of these crab's and it is quite easy to scoop them up with a sweep of your hand. The paddy floor is completely dotted with the chubby crustacean's muddy warrens and gives the appearance of a vastly crated surface of a dark moon. The second problem for the farmers is the thousands of rats. Not only do these vermin eat the rice but they burrow holes throughout the hillside,its visual effect really is quite unbelievable, and as a result reduce the integrity of the terrace walls to the point of collapse. The combination of these two pests is very far from the postcard image you may be used to seeing and make it almost impossible for the village to maintain yearly crops, Made made a point of showing me some of the village stores and gave me a comparison of where their rice levels would normally lie and it was obvious these people were reduced to live off a third of their normal harvest.
Hence here we were plowing the fields for a new crop. Only this time it would be a crop of assorted vegetables. Made would be the first on the hillside, as such his village, to experiment with the new produce in the hope of finding a viable food source for he and his family that would not be put at such jeopardy by the current pestilence.(Made was his extended family's only source of income save for his wife and her selling of a few offerings at the local market. There are eight to provide for.)
Although hot in the sun and our labor intensive I felt very content with my surroundings. From my position half way up the hillside I was looking directly down the water course of the Ho river as it weaved and surged away from me. Just above the terrace wall I was working on were sixty or seventy ducks wandering back and forth flapping and quacking. If I rose to the top of the terraces for something Agung would present itself looming large, overseeing the work and play of the island of Bali. All this to the steady sound of sloshing and scraping as Brutus and Bapack plowed on with our days concern.
I found it a hard days work but the surroundings and the sounds created from them were wonderful. I would often just stop and sit down and soak it all up. Very happy.
The evening presented a new story from this small friendly village, but I will save that for another time.
Cheers
Ham