On Tuesday, October 3, the school garden group went on a field trip to the Ginger Farm. On site, the children participated in a diverse and exciting workshop. The topic was rice. At first glance, this sounds banal and boring, in the course of the afternoon however, we were able to discover the opposite. As a team, we learned through vivid explanations and our own trial and error how the rice grain gets from the plant to the plate.
Among other things, we cooked blue rice: For this you need the flowers of the blue clitoria, which contain the blue juice. The children diligently harvested these. The blue flower juice had to be carefully squeezed from the blossom, the rice washed, and the fire started. The kids did a great job doing these challenging tasks together as a team. Now the rice could simmer in the blue juice in peace.
Meanwhile, we had plenty of time for other exciting activities. Among other things, we stole some eggs from the farm’s smelly chicken coop. In return, they got some delicious chicken feed, which the chickens immediately pounced on and almost pecked our hands away 😬 – luckily nobody got hurt 😌. Chenchen and Sion were even brave enough to grab a chicken each. That was not so easy! Constantly the chickens were running away from you. Once you had caught them, they flapped their wings and freed themselves again in no time. But with the right professional grip around the chicken wings, the two boys quickly got the hang of it and proudly showed off their captured chicken.
Afterward, there was a little test of courage: who dared to sit on the 800kg giant water buffalo??? The clever kids let the adults go ahead as guinea pigs for the first time to make sure that nothing could happen ;)). After some initial hesitation, everyone finally dared to get on the buffalo 💪🥳. What a success!
After that, we went on to the rice field. There we were allowed to learn how to transplant young rice. What a muddy affair that was: First we waded into the muddy rice field with the young rice plants. In the process, we had to be totally careful not to get stuck in the mud or even slip. Otherwise, one would have been surrounded by brown, thick broth. We now tore the young rice plants out of the rice field and reinserted them into an empty rice field with plenty of space between them. Now the young shoots can grow into proud rice plants.
And more fun things to do were awaiting us. Not only were rice plants planted, but also water snails and alleged water snakes were looked out for, we jumped into the rice field and sat down with caution in the mud. We were then allowed to continue the ‘mud play’ on a muddy slide into an even more muddy pool. We haven’t seen so much mud in a long time. Whether playing the muddy games ourselves or watching others play in the mud – everyone enjoyed themselves and almost forgot about the heat.
To top it off, we had our home-cooked rice with omelet, vegetables, soup, and a delicious drink with the Blue Clitoria. It was so much that we did not even manage to eat it all … Tired, exhausted, but extremely happy and satisfied, we let ourselves be driven back to school.
What an exciting day!
To all the participants: Hopefully, you all enjoyed it so that this day will stay in your memories for a long time.
Your Naemi, with Lea and Michaela
