Harvesting grass for roofing. This tends to be a job women engage in.
There’s a pretty narrow window when this can take place. The floods have receded by December or so, and then by the end of February most of the savanna will have been burned.
People cutting grasses to tie into roofing (to use themselves or to sell) need to act quickly before the harvest sites are all burned. The woman above is tying the grass onto a bamboo splint for roofing.
I am back in the field! I got back about a month ago, and am charging along on the last leg of my fieldwork before I write all this business up. One of the big foci on this trip are descriptive ecological inventories of the floodplain vegetation surrounding the village. I have done a lot of interviews about these different landscapes, so it is important that I am able to at least describe some of the plants out there.
Since the area I cover is too large to count every single plant out there, I have to sample a bunch of different areas (actually 60 locations in total, randomly selected, stratified by land use/land cover type from an orthophoto which I classified). Then I will use some statistical techniques to make generalizations about the floodplain flora. To do this, we lay out a 20m by 10m plot and then count the trees and shrubs which fall within this (there’s more to it, but that’s the punchline). We string together 5 of these at each site. The image above is of a couple of my research assistants laying out a line for a new plot.
Not only are we counting, but we are recording names (above). Most of the sites so far have been in rice fields or open savannas.
The open plots are fastest, as there are few trees or shrubs to actually record, (see above). However in addition to the big plots I mentioned above, we are also setting smaller plots within the main plots in order to collect data on the herbaceous understory– usually grasses and sedges. Above is an image of my research assistants setting out the sub-plot.
So we are cranking through these plots relatively quickly. I am happy with our progress so far, though I expect that we will slow down once we reach the sites farther out from the village. As one might predict, the areas closest to the village are mostly rice fields or savannas. Further off is where we’ll be getting into the thicker forest. That should be fun!
Ka-set broke the news to me:
“Most of our presenters are not professional and besides, they are not acknowledged by our Ministry [of Information]”, Nouv Sovathero deplores. Some speak Khmer with a heavy foreign accent! It is something that worries us. With the new law, they will be required to be of Cambodian descent, able to read and express themselves in accordance with the rules of Khmer grammar. Foreign presenters who speak Khmer will not be authorised to exercise any longer, due to their incorrect and inaccurate pronunciation”, the Secretary of State detailed, insisting on the fact that the point was to make people respect “morality” in programmes broadcast throughout Cambodia…
There is a new law being drafted in order to extend the Ministry of Information’s control over media. With the intent of protecting morality, the focus seems to be on games and entertainment sites, with news sites being left alone. I am just a little distressed as this would force me to abandon my dreams of being a wildly popular dj your FM dial. I guess I should stick to the agricultural stuff…
Global Voices has more coverage.
What am I doing here?
This being my inaugural post, I feel obligated to present a little manifesto– to account for what all I might be trying to do. Part of what I am doing here is setting up a way for me to share pictures and anecdotes about living/working in Cambodia. Part of it is a vehicle for me to write about some of the academic issues that I am dealing with– raw ideas that need a little kneading before they are ready; or my notes and observations on some of the scientific literature I am chewing on. Writing helps me think. Part yet again may indeed turn out to be reporting and commentary on more general issues which I think are important, like food systems/agriculture, privacy/security and science in general (as in, the stuff I harangue my family about at holidays). So, I am hoping for a potentially wide variety of material appearing in posts, but following a few related themes. And, I must warn you in advance: posts are likely to appear sporadically. Presently, I am in the city so I have easy access to an internet connection. When I am out in the rural areas, posts will be less frequent. So, don’t hold your breath between episodes. Lastly, I am new to this medium. I expect glitches here and there. Please bear with me.
