Village life

It has been quite quiet in the past few weeks, even though a lot of people came back to the village for new year. The returnees were mainly men but also a few women who work on building sites around Thailand. The ones closest to me work at Bangkok and Phuket at present. They generally work for very little money, starting salary is about 170 bht a day (£2.40), more experienced workers can get a lot more though and some get good bonuses. However compared to wages in the UK they get very little, though they have advantages that we do not have, such as they can live off the land to a greater extent than we could ever. They appear to be going back after a week in the village.
Jobs recently around the village .... a month ago, everyone was collecting rice straw for the buffalo and cows during rice growing season when they can not be let out into the fields.
After that everyone went mad on draining the pools in the rice fields and finding fish and snails, a lot of the fish have been saved by making a smelly rotten fish sauce type thing, i suppose like salting, smoking, pickling and currying, it saves the fish from really rotting.
Digging for land crabs is taking place, mainly by older women it appears to me. Many people are tending little allotment gardens, like myself, because it is the cold season.

Here are two pics, one of Joe with two frogs for eating, and a woman looking for snails as the pond is drained.