Rice 101

Dear All: 

            I can’t stop Sister Taylor from writing her missives.  Now she wants you to learn how to plant, grow, harvest and eat rice.  Rice is served here in the MTC 3 times per day.  Missionaries may eat as much as they want—second, third helpings, etc.  And you ought to see them pile it up—like a snow-capped mountain in the Himalayas  (by the way, we have missionaries who come here for training from Nepal).   The rice overflows the missionaries’ plates.  It’s like they have been starving their whole lives (some of them have indeed). 

            My friend and partner, Brother Villanueva, the MTC Manager of Training says, “Everything is just a side-dish to rice!”  I’ve told you about the pork, the fish, the chicken, the spam!  I suspect that our MTC Christmas Dinner for the missionaries will have rice for everyone.  I like rice.  Here, it is sticky, white, fluffy, and has hardly any food value.  When I return home, I’m going to buy a big package of Rice-a-Rony (the San Francisco Treat!) to get a little bit more flavor with that delicious monosodium glutamate (it gives me a royal headache—but it might be worth it!).

            Producing rice here in the Philippines is a very big but broad and local industry.  They used to export their rice all over Asia until Asia decided to produce their own—now they import it to the Philippines.  I think for Christmas, you should go out and buy and prepare a large pot of rice for your Christmas Dinner.  If you are not excited, you should still read Sister Taylor’s article. 

 

Love, GT & DT   

Rice 101

Rice in the morning! Rice in the evening! Rice at supper time!

Don’t waste one grain of rice, and we will all be fine.

 

Planting rice in the Philippines

1.     Prepare the plot of ground and make it soggy.

2.     Saturate the rice grains in the sack.

3.     Spread the rice on the ground by hand.

4.     Keep ground very soggy.

5.     Add fertilizer after 5 days.

6.     Pick out all the snails and feed them to the pigs.

7.     Prepare another plot ground and divide into sections.

8.     Add compost and charcoal to the soil.

9.     Transplant seedlings after growing 2 weeks from the first plot to second plot. Make sure they are spread out for further growth.

10.                        Harvest by hand with a sickle after about 120 days.

11.                        You can thrash the rice with your feet but it hurts.

12.                        Place rice in the bags.

13.                        Place on the side of the road for drying. Make sure rice is removed in the night and if it rains.

14.                        Remove the rice husks.

15.                        Burn husks.

16.                        Celebrate! Sell your rice and eat it!

Planting rice in the Philippines (U tube.com)