A while back, I posted my account of eating for nine days in the northern Lao village of Sophoon. That was an example of what comes to the dinner table when the hosts know they have guests to feed. A few days ago, we trekked to the Hmong village of Ban Pakeo, several hours on foot from another Hmong village outside of Phonsavanh. We went there for a variety of reasons (old jars, for one), and you’ll have the opportunity to read much more about this in the future. But first, let’s consider dinner.

Ban Pakeo has no electricity (though that might change if villagers agree on allowing solar panels into their community). When we visited five years ago, villagers had to walk up and down steep hills to retrieve small buckets of water (that’s changed, thanks to a couple of water taps installed by Engineers Without Borders and a man named Don May at Fort Lewis College). Ban Pakeo has a cell phone, but it takes an afternoon hike to charge the phone in the nearest roadside village. Bottom line: no one knew we were coming for dinner. We had no way of notifying them. When we arrived around 5 p.m., all but a handful of kids and a few adults were still working in the fields. This is so all across Laos–the rains have started and it’s planting time.

So the villagers offered a live chicken, and our guide found a few young women to cook (presumably they killed and prepared the chicken–we never saw it again until it appeared as pictured above).  They had no vegetables, but they did have steamed rice (the Hmong traditionally eat mountain rice grown in slash-and-burn fields; and some of the families here also grow wetland sticky rice). When dinner arrived on the table, around 8 p.m., it was soup, rice, and two leftover jaeows we had bought before the trek began. We finished it off with fresh mango, also purchased in town before we started hiking.

The broth was delicious–very salty (much needed after hours of sweating) and infused with a forest herb that tasted to me like the fragrant essence of Christmas trees–piney, green, minty. We were told this was a local herb eaten to restore strength and cure illness.

But where did half the chicken go? We got the head, the feet, the neck, some of the innards. But the breast? The meat? Nowhere to be seen.

Breakfast the next morning was sticky rice, more leftover jaeow, and more leftover soup. This, we know, is what most villagers eat on a daily basis–or some variation thereof. They eat what they have, they have very little, but they survive on what the land around them offers. 

Breakfast, Day 5

Last month, we spent nine days in the field with Jim Harris’s team in rural Phongsali province. We camped at the local dispensary and showered with cold river water, which was piped uphill to the village. The team hired two young women to cook, clean and launder. Our meals were served communally, outside, on an old red table. There weren’t enough benches and chairs, so we stood around baskets of sticky rice and the plat du jour. Each person paid 30,000 kip ($3.50) for three daily meals.

In those nine days, I kept a diary of what we ate. With a few small exceptions (late meals, off trekking), I managed to record almost every meal. I present that diary here because I find it a fascinating telltale of village life, its limitations, its repetitions and routines. Villagers bestowed the team with little gifts of homegrown garlic and backyard tamarind. But after the novelty faded (Sophoon is unaccustomed to foreign guests), I don’t think our cooks quite knew what to do with us. I would have loved more of the roots and vegetables that villagers collect in the forest, as well as the greens they grow in their garden. I offered to pay extra for fresh lettuce, spinach, herbs and other greens–but the residents of Sophoon almost never sell their vegetables, so the concept somewhat confused them. When something new appeared on the table, it likely had come strapped to the back of a dusty moto, driven by itinerant peddlers who make the daily trek from Dien Bien Phu, not far across the border. These sorts of travels make me a more appreciative person. The surprise of a fresh mango or mustard leaves tickled my palate with delight.

I’m a lover of simple, spicy farm food; homegrown and homemade. But it didn’t take long for my tongue to tire. By Day 3, I was sick of fish (and egg, which neither Jerry nor I eat). Of course, repetition is a matter of life in Sophoon. Villagers eat what’s in season, what falls off the tree, what pops through the soil in the forest, or what comes through on the occasional truck to Vietnam.

On the other hand, Sophoon is an organic locavore heaven. When a cook walked into the kitchen hut with a chicken, we ate it for dinner that night. And Michael Pollan would approve: nothing on this menu contained more than five ingredients. With a couple of canned exceptions, absolutely everything originated in the hills between Sophoon and Dien Bien Phu.

Dinner ’round the red table

So goes our week of village sustenance (with comments in parentheses):

DAY 1
Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow (or jeow—spicy paste made with toasted chiles. More on this to come.)
-Minced fish with chile
-Plain boiled cabbage
-Green & yellow beans with tomato, onion, chile, garlic

DAY 2
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Fried egg with green onion, garlic, tomato, chile
-Boiled cabbage with garlic and chile

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red Jaeow
-Boiled cabbage
-Fried small fish

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Fragrant fish soup with lemongrass (which team leader Vilaisack plucked from a field after a bomb demolition)
-Fish laap

Team leader Vilaisack with lemongrass cut from a field near a bomb demolition

DAY 3
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Very garlicky red jaeow
-Boiled cabbage and tomato with garlic
-Small fried fish

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow, super garlicky and juicy
-Omelet with tomato, chile, onion
-Spicy slightly bitter fish (from Dien Bien Phu) stuffed with lemongrass in a soup of tomato, garlic and local sour fruit

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Omelet
-Fish/tomato/lemongrass soup
(This is getting old and the team is griping. Only fish and egg, egg and fish. We lobby for more vegetables.)

DAY 4
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Omelet
(This is really old. And skimpy. We try to get the cooks to buy vegetables from the locals. It costs 3,000 kip, 35 cents, for a kilogram of any vegetables. We offer to pay extra if necessary.)

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Pork with boiled garlic, tomato, chile
-Mustard greens soup with chile and black pepper
(Variety! A distinct improvement.)

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Steamed cassava leaves (which the team collected after a demolition)
-Dried salty crispy beef
-Pork with tomato, yellow beans, chile, garlic

DAY 5
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Dried toasted buffalo skin strips (hard as rock)
-Yesterday’s leftover pork cooked with garlic, chile, spinach
-Minced pork fat cooked in tomato garlic broth for a Lao khao soy-style sauce
-Bowl of fresh raw lettuce leaves
(A pig was purchased before yesterday’s lunch, and we’re still eating it).

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Fresh green roasted chile jaeow, super hot
-Pork fat with shredded tomato and cabbage
-Mustard green soup with hunks of pork fat

Dinner
(Jim succeeds in organizing “Mexico night.”)
-Raw cabbage leaves to use as tortillas
-Canned black refried beans cooked with fresh garlic
-“Salsa” of cooked tomatoes, onions, chile
(Jim uses the cabbage to wrap the ingredients like a taco. It works. The guys each try one and declare it sep, meaning delicious. Then they eat their sticky rice, pork fat with greens and green chile jaeow and deer meat of mysterious origins.)

Jim explains “Mexico Night” tacos to the team…

…which everyone enjoys before reverting to the usual sticky rice.

DAY 6
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Green jaeow
-Mild bok choy soup with chile and garlic
-Dark dried beef (we’re told beef, but it looks distinctly like the previous night’s deer) fried with bok choy, garlic, onion, a bit of tomato and pork fat

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Dried beef pieces
-Beef, bok choy and garlic soup
-Fresh sweet mango

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Fish soup (only fish and gingery broth, no vegetables)
-Watermelon (which I bought off a truck that stopped in the village and dumped its stash)

DAY 7
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Green jaeow with added tamarind
-Cilantro and green chile soup
-Steamed cassava leaves
-Canned sardines and tomato
-Omelet

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Green jaeow
-Papaya salad with peanuts
-Mustard greens soup
-Green beans fried with chicken, chile, garlic

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Green beans with chicken

DAY 8
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Boiled mustard greens soup, just a little chile and salt
-Plain boiled green beans
-Fried meaty bacon with little fat

Dinner
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Tamarind chicken soup
-Chopped “grenade” chicken with green beans
(In addition, I cook canned tuna, tomato, onion, garlic and chile.)

DAY 9
Breakfast
-Sticky rice
-Red juicy jaeow
-Fresh lettuce leaves
-Canned sardines in tomato sauce
-Sweet potato ginger soup
(This is good. Mild, young, fragrant ginger slightly sweetened from the potatoes. I think of making it at home: start with chicken stock, some small fresh garlic and garlic greens and/or chives, ginger, potato chunks, dried red chile, salt. If not using regular potatoes, add a pinch of palm sugar.)

Lunch
-Sticky rice
-Red jaeow
-Melon soup with green onion and grenade chicken
-Papaya salad
-Fried forest ferns with chile, garlic, fish (Borneo-style but these ferns have a leafier consistency… now why couldn’t we have had these sooner?

So you’re a young Khmer guy in the big town of Siem Reap, and you’re out for dinner—alone. But your honey is on the phone, and your grin gives that fact away. You chat and chat with that grin real wide until the fried rice comes to the table. Then you wield the little black phone with the left hand, and a spoon with the right, devoting half your attention to each task in each hand. Neither the grin nor the conversation falters. You don’t even notice the barang sitting across from you, snapping your picture again and again and again, in quick succession. You pile the rice into your mouth, still talking and grinning, eyes cast downward, focused on rice—but every other bit of your being so obviously concentrating on the sweet sounds coming through that little black phone.

Then suddenly, inexplicably—though not unpleasantly, because the grin continues—the conversation ends and you can attend to your dinner with two hands. Fork in the left, spoon in the right; zip bang boom, the plate is clear, the bill is paid, and you’re off. You strut down the street with a little jig in your hips—and a big grin still carved in your face.

View of the rice fields around Doi Saket, in northern Thailand.

In winter, northern Thailand wakes to a cloak of fog. Cool mountain air flushes down the mountains through dry, golden valleys. Straw hats bob through the fields as men, women and children stoop to the earth.

It’s rice harvest season, but it’s not as it used to be. These days, you will find more hired Burmese laborers, and fewer Thais working the fields. More lands with mini-mansions, and fewer producing food. More mechanical plows, and fewer animals.

Thai rice farmer Dej smiles in the common area beneath his family home. He works the same fields his father did, but is struggling to keep up with expensive modern practices. He now must work extra jobs outside the home to make ends meet.

We have a friend and colleague who lives in a stunningly beautiful Thai house whose porch opens directly onto the fields and mountains of Doi Saket. A while back we met her neighbors, a family of longtime farmers who spoke to us of big changes in their world.

“I was the last one to have a buffalo in this village,” said Khun Dej, the 51-year-old son of 90-something parents who had farmed in this area for decades. They all lived in a little wooden house on stilts amid chickens, papayas and bamboo. The family’s 3 acres supported three generations of this family.

Portraits of Tan (top) and Poot, parents of farmer Dej. They have lived most their lives on the rice farm their son now struggles to maintain.

“When I was young and went to plow, we always used buffalo and no machine,” Dej said. “Every house had their field and we helped each other—today we work this land, tomorrow we work that land.” But times changed.

About 10 years ago, villagers began selling their buffalo and buying plows. “In one day, a buffalo can work only two times, in the morning and in the afternoon. But the machine can work all day and it’s faster,” Dej explained. Modern machinery allows farmers the time for a second job, a necessity in today’s economy. Every year, Dej plants two rice crops. The first, he keeps to feed his family. The second, he sells for about 10,000 baht (about $300). Not much for an annual income.

Hence, Dej had planned to sell the beloved family buffalo, Mut, when she grew too old to work. “I didn’t want to sell her but I didn’t know what to do.” The meat on such an animal could garner 20,000 baht (close to $600). Dej could use the money to buy a plow.

But Mut was saved just in time, by my colleague, who offered to pay for her upkeep in a nearby field now named “The Home for Elderly Buffalo.” Dej bought his plow and started spending more time at a second job growing lemons and pomelos, while Mut retired in peace.

But the story didn’t end happily ever after. While Mut lazed in countryside breezes, Dej said he worried about rising prices. “In the past, there was no need to use much money for life,” he said. The rice harvest provided enough to sustain a family. “But nowadays, everything is expensive. Especially the petrol to feed his plow (Mut never needed such pricey food). “If we consider the expense,” he said, “the buffalo is better because there’s no need to buy fuel.”

Dej wished he could return to the olden days. “I cannot earn a lot because of fuel prices,” he said. “I want to use buffalo again. Buffalo is better.”

View of the family’s rice in the field.

Every morning begins with coffee, of course, and usually fruit. But the centerpiece of any Costa Rican breakfast is the spotted rooster, better known as gallo pinto. Rice and beans. “Gallo” means rooster, “pinto” means spotted, and the name refers to the dappled appearance of the dish when the white rice mixes with red or black beans. It’s the so-called national dish of both Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and people in both countries can get more than a little uppity when it comes to the history of this food and the proper way in which to prepare it. According to an article that ran this summer in The SJO Post, Universidad de Costa Rica researcher Patricia Vega has found that the dish originated in the Costa Rican Caribbean region, where Tico and Nicaraguan banana plantation workers ate gallo pinto together.

Of course, my niece’s host mother makes the best gallo pinto. But it’s apparently difficult to get a recipe out of her.

I dreamed of ceviche before landing in Costa Rica. And when I finally dig into a bowl of it for lunch one day, I dream of what I would do to this dish, were I in charge. It comes with big fleshy chunks of fish (not sure the variety, but certainly fresh and tasty) in a boat of lime, cilantro and mild onion. A little too mild, a little too blah. I imagine a stronger onion, chile, a pinch of garlic, a sliced homegrown tomato….

Now, something of note: see that packet of ketchup? It’s part of the ubiquitous duo, ketchup and mayo, perhaps the Costa Rican salsa. As my niece says, locals slather it on everything. I’m mildly appalled until it accompanies a Tico taco I order one night: deep fried shrimp-filled tortilla, smothered in cabbage slices and that red-white salsa. And it’s good! So prevalent is mayo, I buy some as a souvenir for people I know will appreciate it. It’s flavored with lime, and it comes in a squeeze pouch!

Mostly, though, I’m fascinated by the colors, and the way they dazzle in the light. From juice dispensers…

…to the little market in Miramar, where my niece spent her time. I love the radiance; and I love the way food centers in this rainbow, painting the Costa Rican backdrop.

I couldn’t resist. As soon as I read Nan San San Aye’s recipe for an aromatic mutton meatball curry, I knew it would be part of the next Rosi meal. Now, let’s get a couple of things straight. In Burma, “mutton balls” might very well mean goat testicle curry (which a friend recently referred to as “fighting balls”). In much of Asia, “mutton” means “goat.” And testicles are sometimes part of the diet. Interesting discussion here on the consumption of goat meat among immigrants to the US. But on our plates that night, we had Burmese lamb meatballs, Burmese butter rice and Burmese guacamole (which I’d been itching to make).

She’s still adorable, isn’t she? OK, on with the recipes, my notes in italics again. I had more meat than the recipe called for, so I upped the other ingredients.

Mutton meatball curry
Adapted from Cooking with Love Myanmar Style

Ingredients:
450 grams mutton or lamb (I used 1.75 lb ground lamb)
1 cm ginger (I used a segment 1.5 inches long)
1 lemongrass stalk* (I used 1 1/2)
3 onions (after the previous week’s very oniony curry, I stuck to three small, mild onions)
2 cloves garlic (I used three)
5 tomatoes (I used 7)
1/3 cup oil
A little masala Indian spice**
A little paprika, turmeric, salt

*Make sure you chop the lemongrass finely before pounding, or you will end up with lemongrass slivers.

**I made my own masala, based on Camellia Panjabi’s recipe in 50 Great Curries of India. In a dry skillet, I toasted 3 2-inch cinnamon sticks; 1 1/4 tsp each of cloves, black pepper and cardamom; 1 tsp fennel; 1 bay leaf. After toasting, I ground into a fine powder.

Method
Mince the mutton if it isn’t already. Mince in ginger. Slice thinly the lemongrass and pound with garlic. When smooth, mix half of the pounded ingredients into the mutton. Add salt, turmeric and masala; form into balls.

Heat the oil and fry thinly sliced onions with the leftover pounded garlic and lemongrass. When golden and fragrant, add chopped tomatoes and sweet paprika. When oil sizzles, add mutton balls and gently turn them to brown on all sides. When oil sizzles add enough water to cover and cook until oil sizzles again (don’t add too much or the curry will be watery). Sprinkle with more masala and serve.

Burmese butter and lentil rice
Adapted from Cook and Entertain the Burmese Way by Mi Mi Khaing

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups raw split-pea lentils (I used corn, boiled and cut off the cob, because Mom is limiting her lentil intake due to adverse effects on Rosi’s digestive system)
2 1/2 cups raw rice
2 large onions
4 T ghee
4 cardamom pods
2 cloves
3 bay leaves
1 tsp turmeric or 1/16 tsp saffron (I used turmeric)
1 cup shelled green peas (didn’t have, so I didn’t use)
1 T salt

Method:
Wash and soak lentils ahead of time to shorten cooking time (if using corn, boil cobs, then cut off kernels). Boil lentils until halfway done. Wash and drain rice, slice onions.

Heat ghee, add spices and let aroma rise. Add half the sliced onion. When it begins to brown, add turmeric, remaining onion, green peas, lentils and salt. Stir well. If saffron is used, dissolve in 2 T hot water and add to the 4 1/2 cups of water for the rice.

Add rice, mix well, then add 4 1/2 cups water. Cover and cook over high heat. Stir once or twice before it comes to a boil. As water is absorbed, lower heat, shake pot with lid on. Continue to cook very slowly until rice is dry and fluffy, shaking pot once or twice more. (This turned out beautifully buttery — I love ghee!)

Burmese guacamole
Inspired by a breakfast buffet at a Yangon guesthouse

Ingredients:
3 small ripe avocados
a drizzle of peanut oil
3 sliced shallots
a handful of chopped cilantro
a large pinch of ground chickpea or peanut powder (I used roasted peanuts to grind)
hot chile powder to taste
juice of 3 key limes
salt to taste

Method:
Remove pits from avocados and scoop the meat into a bowl. Slice the shallots, chop the cilantro and pound peas or peanuts. Mix all ingredients. (If you really want to make an authentic Burmese salad, mix by hand! This would work well with corn chips, as you would serve an ordinary guacamole.)

Much of Southeast Asia remains brittle and parched through these last weeks of the dry season when the heat builds to oppressive measures. Fields lie empty until the rains begin and new, green life can grow.

But in Siem Reap, around the Tonle Sap, the seasons run counter to that schedule. The dry season is the only time these farmers can grow rice. When the rains come, the great lake rises high, flooding the region and forcing villagers into boats and homes high on stilts. (This ecosystem, by the way, makes for a remarkable bird habitat.)

We caught a few farmers at work recently. Field owner Nou Dara says his hectare of land has fed his family for more than 10 years. “If we have enough to eat, I will take the rest to sell in the market.” He, like many we meet in Siem Reap, admits he would sell his land if someone offered the right price. (Someone did offer a price last year, but it wasn’t high enough for his liking.) “I would stop growing rice,” he says. He would focus on his other job: teaching.

Lahu villagers from Jabo, in northern Thailand, pound sticky rice in order to make New Year’s cakes for spirit offerings

Happy International Women’s Day, to all of you female friends. To the men out there: please treat the women in your life kindly today.

And happy Lahu New Year, a week belated. We happened to spend that holiday with the villagers of Jabo, in northern Thailand, where the headman granted us a fascinating interview about the archaeological importance of a nearby cave. He took time from the holiday festivities to serve us tea and chat about village history.

Lahu New Year’s dinner preparations

Meanwhile, some villagers prepared a pig for the evening feast while others exercised upper-arm muscles, pounding cooked sticky rice, fresh and hot from the pot, with the aid of two 12-foot green bamboo pestles and a giant mortar carved from a log. The rice was mixed with ground sesame and shaped into tiny cakes that hardened in time. These can be eaten with jaggery for a stick-to-your-ribs sort of mountain snack. But the Lahu, who follow the animist traditions of their ancestors, offered most New Year cakes to the spirits for peace, health and good luck in the coming months.

Lahu rice cakes

The perfectly hospitable villagers handed us a sack of cakes, nearly 10 pounds worth of sticky rice. “For you,” they said. We ate a few but couldn’t possibly finish them all. No human could tackle such a load; perhaps the spirits could. The next day we spread the remaining cakes around a spirit house on the edge of a mountainous highway as an offering for safe journeys.

The Jabo headman kindly invited us to return for a night of Lahu dancing, 9 p.m. til sunrise. We fully intended to fetch a little dinner, then drive the winding road back to his village. But our headlights flickered on and off in the moonless night, and we decided it best to skip the party. Good thing–the next morning, 2 miles downhill from the lodge where we’d been staying, our brakes failed. A hunk of metal fell on the road–a brake shoe. Good thing ours was the only vehicle on the road that moment.

You’ll hear more about the wonders of Thai rental Jeeps in another forum. For now: happy New Year, happy Women’s Day, and safe travels.

A greater racket-tailed drongo greets the Lahu New Year morning

Near Kengtung, Shan State, Myanmar, December 2008

The Shan State valleys are shrouded in mist on winter mornings. We spotted this farmer while riding a motorbike to an early-morning roving hilltribe market near Kengtung this week. The first signs of second-season rice appear in vibrant green patches across the landscape. Shan State markets teem with sticky rice in dozens of varieties and colors, from deep burgundy to speckled tan.

It’s a cold, crisp morning on the second day of our trek along the India-Nepal border. Wind slaps against the lodge where we slept the previous night, and icicles cling to the rocks outside. But the sun shines brightly, and the trail zigzags upward along a steep switchback course. In time, my body warms and I begin to sweat. When I reach the top of a tree-lined hill, I pause for a few moments in a soft spot of green leaves covered in tiny berries. Rhododendrons bloom all around me.

Not much farther on sits a tea stop and rest area called Kaiyankata. The trail here is lined with fluttering flags, denoting the international border: the road is India, the tea shop Nepal. I stand precisely on the border line, jotting notes. I am everywhere and nowhere on that line.

The air way up here is so blue, so clear; the breathing is clean and easy. It’s amazing how much air can exist in a place with so little of it.

In addition to serving tea to trekkers, the villagers near Kaiyankata keep fields of green peas, and they make rock-hard cheese and butter—commodities sold in Darjeeling, a day’s hike away. Occasionally on the trail, we pass villagers heading to the city with yaks and backs saddled with heavy goods.

We sit in the sun, sipping sweet tea and admiring the silence for a while. Then, just as we prepare to hit the trail again, we watch an old man scurrying back and forth with greens in his hand. Our guide explains: a woman in a nearby house is afflicted by an unhealthy spirit, and the villagers have called for an exorcist to perform a ritual to make her well.

Really? Can we see?

Our guide consults with villagers and they welcome us warmly. We are led into a kitchen where three men sit beside a bright blue wooden table. A fire burns in an earthen stove, and 8-inch lengths of hard cheese hang from the rafters. Beyond the kitchen is another room, visible through two tiny glass windows. The kitchen is dark but the other room is bright with sunshine beaming through a skylight of plastic sheeting. The ailing woman sits inside that room.

We watch intently. We have no idea what to expect. We have never seen an exorcism before.

And thus, the ritual begins. The exorcist, a 30-year-old man named Tirtha Bahadur, sits in the center of the kitchen. He places a dried flower into a tiny bamboo basket shaped like a cone. He sticks the bamboo into the wooden floor beside an array of items—a small fire burner, a tray of raw rice with a piece of ginger, a vase of green leaves and a plate of incense shavings. The woman enters the kitchen and sits beside Tirtha.

He sprinkles vermilion over the flower, then lifts a few pieces of dried incense and hums a scripture. Three times he sprinkles incense onto the glowing embers of his hot little burner. After each sprinkling, he clasps his hands in prayer. Then he grabs a few grains of rice and sprinkles those onto the flower. The room fills with the perfume of incense.

Tirtha raises the green leaves over the flower, then lifts rice in his right hand and ginger in his left. The rice grains spill onto the flower. He lifts the greens again and sprinkles water from their stems onto the flower. Then more rice onto the flower. Then rice raised to the woman’s head. Two more handfuls of incense are tossed into the embers. Flowery, spicy smoke sails upward; the room smells of cedar now. Throughout all of this, Tirtha chants. He swings his right arm around the woman, circling her with a handful of rice.

This continues about 10 minutes as Tirtha whispers soft prayers between quickly moving lips. Then he raises his hand to the woman, gives her a few grains of rice and holds the bamboo cone for her to spit into. She fingers the rice, eats a few grains and places the rest in a scrap of paper. Then she returns to her little sunlit room.

With that, the ritual ends. “He has called all of the deities he knows,” our guide explains. “He has been trained. And he has asked the deities to cure the lady.”

I talk to Tirtha for a few moments. His name means “to go on a religious tour,” he tells me. “I have been doing this 18 years. I was born this way. My parents knew—when I touched someone, he was cured.” He travels far and wide to perform these rituals; he requires food and a little money as payment.

Then I enter the small room and talk to the woman, named Daki. She is unable to move her arm, which looks out of place and oddly bent at the elbow. “I didn’t fall down or anything,” she says. It just stopped working one day. “The medicine man came six months ago. My arm got better. It comes and goes.” She says she must eat seven grains of raw rice for the next three nights before she goes to sleep. She is certain she will get better.