These are the two large fire pits we dug and prepared with brick and mud last year, and a bamboo and palmyra leaf shelter to cover them. Last monsoon and autumn, they served as shelter from the sun, and a nursery for our winter vegetables. The pits collected a lot of rain water, and we trained pumpkins and other gourds up the roof. Shortly before the cane cutting began this year, the ostad brought his pans and they were secured to the pits with a mixture of mud and cowdung.