Classroom Blog
Today we were lucky to have Mr. Khang come in to our class and talk to us about rice farmining in Vietnam. Mr. Khang is from Vietnam, and his family are rice farmers in the mountains of Sapa. Mr. Khang spent many years farming with his family, so it was very interesting to have sometime explain first hand about the experience. He showed us where Vietnam was on a map and explained the different steps of rice cultivation. It was great to compare and contrast the different steps in Vietnam and Madagascar. Mr. Khang has some wonderful images of Vietnam. The kids were in awe. It is truly a beautiful country.
Mr. Khang also brought in his rice cooker and showed us how easy it is for him to make rice now with technology. We set it up, and after about 30 minutes, it was ready to eat! Mr. Khang explained that in Vietnam they eat rice with every meal, every day! Because of this, they add different flavors to the rice to make sure it doesn't get too boring. Mr. Khang divided the rice into three sections. One he mixed with coconut, one with sesame seeds, and one was left plain. At the end of our morning, everyone got to try the three different flavors of rice. It was great to have a guest in the class to share their knowledge about rice and rice cultivation. It was a great connection to our current UOI in Rice in Madagascar.
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This week we went to the rice paddies for the first time. We will be going multiple times throughout the year to help with with different steps of rice cultivation in Madagascar. Our first trip was about plowing the field to get it ready for planting. We learned new vocabulary, such as angady, yoke, plow, and dykes. Students learned that there are two ways to plow. Farmers do it by hand with a shovel called an angady. They soon realized that using an angady was not easy work and would take them a very long time. If farmers have zebu, they can use a plow pulled by the zebu to plow the fields. After students tried both methods, they knew that working with the zebu would be much easier, both on their bodies and on the amount of time it would take. Next month we will return for the next step of growing rice, raking the fields. Everyone is looking forward to our next trip.
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