Chapter 90: Rice Fields
More and more workers arrived, streaming out of the nearby barrios, until their number reached up to forty men. They came not out of sheer patriotism—though that sentiment might have flickered in some hearts—nor did they do it for money. Had that been the case, then with all the building and preparation we’d done just this week alone, my coffers would’ve been emptied dry.
Workers were paid in rice. And for some, that was handsome pay enough. Although rice was abundantly grown in the province, not everyone could afford it. The poor often contented themselves with root crops—cassava, sweet potatoes, taro—and only savored rice during rare celebrations. A few sacks of rice could mean a week of full bellies for a whole family.
Don delos Santos had them gather around him. With an authoritative tone I was not used to hearing from him, he assigned the roles to the workers. Some were to destroy the dikes, which bordered the paddies and helped lock water in place. The rest were to build ditches to guide water out of the area.
Then the work began in earnest, and the men, armed with their shovels, spades, and bolo knives, battled the stubborn soil and thick mud. The sun bore down on them, and before long, shirts were stained with sweat and dirt. The rhythmic clanging of metal against earth echoed across the field.
Don delos Santos watched hawkishly from the road with us.
"So, how long will this take us, all in all?" I asked the juez.
He took a good scan of the rice fields and sighed, "Just the draining and the drying could take up to five days. Then, depending on what you want to do with the field, this could take us a week or two."
"That wouldn’t work," I said, scratching my head. The training of the first batch should start on Monday.
That is, if I want the second batch trained within the month—March 6 to 17 for the first one hundred, and then March 20 to 31 for the newly trained recruits.
"What would it take for you to finish this by Monday?" I asked him.
"Monday... that would be very tight," Don delos Santos said, sharply inhaling through his teeth. "I would need a lot more men—maybe a hundred more—and ready access to the materials. I would also need your close supervision on what you want done. That means you’ll have to stay here at least until Sunday."