GOAN FARMER'S HOUSE

Goa's main staple, rice is grown in paddy fields across large areas of Goa. Two different crops are planted: Rabi is sown during the monsoon in June and harvested in November and Karif is cultivated during the dry season between October and Febuary using irrigation water stored in reservoirs and ponds.

Each stage of the process, involvs days sloshing around in thick mud, or being bent double under blazing sunshine.

These farmers lived in houses built of mud, laterite stone and other locally available material. The main part of the house is roofed with small clay tiles 'sulche nodde'. A cowdung paved courtyard flanked by a haystack, ploughing instruments, a woven palm-leaf 'rain coat", all lead to a narrow patio, fronting a single-room mud dwelling.

This thatched structure houses in a single room, the kitchen with a fire place, a bamboo hung with rope from the roof, is used for hanging the garments and even the 'gumot' (drum). A crude altar houses idols of saints and crosses.

The front patio has a niche bearing an oil lamp and the floor has a pit where rice or spices are pounded using a pounding stick (kandon).