The main crop grown seems to be rice, but in the dry season, which this was, many of the farmers dig up the clayey soil from the paddy fields and make mud bricks, which they stack like this, then fire for four days or so, burning a mixture of charcoal and zebu dung. Zebu are the local cattle, of which you can see examples later. One consequence of this practice is that the paddy fields tend to be rather lower than the surrounding landscape.