Lychee and Lychee

We visited our IDPs friends in May. It was the time to harvest lychee. We met only the elderly and young kids at the village. The others were busy in their lychee orchards and some were the labours in the orchards. The Phu Yai Ban (village's leader) was at her orchard too.

It was another hard working time of the year. The villagers had to wake up at 4 am, worked in the orchard and had very late lunch. Then took the lychee to sell at a market. They got 9-10 baht per kg for the biggest size and 1 baht for the smalles size. The price was quite low and the income did not cover the expenses. But they had to sell it. "Better than getting nothing" they told us.

Lychee is one source of their yearly income. But when they get very low price, lychee becomes the source of their depts !