“Tails it is. I hope there is something down here, I’m gagging for a drink already. You forget how hot it gets sitting in a cooled room or under a parasol with a fan. Look at them, Craig!”
Craig had already seen them – eight women and a man in a field planting rice shoots by hand. “I thought they had machines for that,” remarked Ross.
“They do, but it damages a percentage of the shoots and you can’t get it in certain spots like corners or around trees. Most farmers use a machine, but they’ll all tell you that planting by hand is the best. It delivers the best crop and so more money at harvest too, and local women earn out of it instead of some planter from outside the village.”
“If women do the work, who’s the bloke then?”
“That’s probably the owner, then there’ll be his wife and a bu
