1.   A huge hand reached down and put a little tray on the packed earth under the floor.

2.   And have you ever put a tree a Christmas tree in a tub and packed earth round it and got the bloody thing to stand up straight?

3.   Behind the narrow dikes of packed earth, the fields are empty of their most profitable plant.

4.   Most houses are tenuous one- or two-room structures, made of packed earth with mud and thatch roofs, supported by a few wooden beams.

5.   The mud and straw homes have floors of packed earth.

6.   Chickens and turkeys pecked at the packed earth, and a black dog growled in front of an abandoned wooden house.

7.   Even now, many homes are simply packed earth and straw.

8.   Grains of rice from harvests past are trampled into the packed earth of its front yard.

9.   Soon, the packed earth along the river was covered in blood.