Harvest and Cricket

Its harvest time here so it feels right to have celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend. Slowly but surely the once lush, green rice paddies are turning brown and dry. Everyone gets in on the fun. I was biking through the village one day and I saw a group of kids playing in a big pile of straw much like Canadian kids would play in a big pile of leaves. A couple weeks ago I took this picture. There were probably 60 people working in this field at the same time. Many hands make light work I guess.

Cricket is a big deal here. Everyone loves it. I've been here 3 and a half months and I still haven't learned how to play, but it's on my to do list. On the weekend, any place where there is an open field you see people playing cricket. This morning I was on my bike and I saw 3 games in progress.

A few days ago I was biking back from AKB and I saw some people playing cricket in a recently harvested rice field. They were either quite good or no one had anything better to do because there was a pretty big crowd gathered. I was intrigued and so I decided to pull over and watch for a while. Well it seems like everyone else there thought the same thing about me and as soon as word spread that a bideshi was in attendance the game abruptly stopped so all the players could turn and stare at me. Pretty soon a crowd had gathered around me. I don't think there is any length of time that I could live here and not feel awkward in this situation. So I took some pictures answered a few questions and pedalled off.

So the moral of the story is this: I am more interesting than cricket.

Before the bideshi sighting