Updates from the Orchard

Hey gang - it's been a while since the last post but alas there's still not much to be said. We got jobs, eventually, through an Indian contractor (Jaswinder Singh) at a pack house. We met him at his office, then followed him along winding roads through, what appeared to be, the swamps outside of Mordor (the name escapes me). Low-lying fog covered the ground, and dead treesw poked up every here and there - creepy, to say the least. But after a long, long drive, we arrived at the packhouse, filled out a couple of short forms and got to work. Squash would come down an airport luggage clain-style conveyor belt, and it was our job to grab it up (fast) and pack it in big, wooden crates. You had to do it so the stems were down on the bottom, and facing out on the sides, and the squash packed in neat little rows. That went on for about 3 hours, then we took a break. Then three more, then lunch - then more squash. One of the guys we had talked to said that we did this for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Hooray. We got out early that day, however, and gratefully headed home. After several days of this, the squash flow (which I never understood anyway...no one in the world eats that much squah. They said it was being shipped to China and Japan, where I suspect that it was used to build houses) lessened, and we took off a day an weeded squash, under the watchfull eye of the foreman, named "Molestery McMolesteryson"...by Keller. 

All this time, Jas had been telling us that there were openings at Tumu Tumbers for workers...and that sounded like the job for us. After a good solid week or so of calling him, not being able to get ahold of him, etc. we secured the position. We showed up for work the following monday, with out earmuffs, steel-toed boots, and reflective shirts...at 4:00pm. The work, we found, was in our expertise of taking stuff of conveyor belts and packing it away. The night shift was about 15 guys or so, mostly Maori, and not to cleanest cut crowd you'd see. Although the work was fast paced (and I guess you could say "exciting"...not really though) there were some downsides to it. First of all, played OVER the noise of all the machines, which made hearing anything impossible (or so I thought) was "Flava" New Zealand's hip-hop and R&B (not the good kind) radio station. Nothing could block out the sound. Not the 3 or 4 saws. Not earplugs under earmuffs. There was no hope. Also, I mean this in the most sensetive and least racially-charged way possible, but ALL of our co-workers who were of a certain, unspecified, South-Pacific tribal heritage (hint: it rhymes with "Baori") constantly emitted absolutely the worst smell I have ever encountered. You could tell when one of them was walked by behind you. It got the the point and when one of them would come over and help me stack some wood, I'd leave and go somewhere else. 

The one night of excitement that we did have, however, was when we were driving home, at 3 or 4 in the morning, after a night of long hard work...and the car ran out of gas. We pulled over to the side of the road...and decided to walk to Flaxmere (the notorious ghetto) to fill up the gas can. However, of course, once we got to the gas station, we found that not only was it closed, but it also had to night-pay system, or posted opening hours. We tried to call a taxi, but the payphone of course didn't take coins, and only certain phone cards - none of which we had. We sent Keller back to stay in the car (to make sure it didn't get towed) while Noah and I were going to wait...for 3 or 4 hours...for the gas station to open. Luckily, after getting bored of waiting (not long, I assure you) Noah and I happened upon a way to call a taxi, and were soon on the road again. Unluckily, the car turned out to not have been out of gas, and instead have had a dying fuel pump, but that's another story entirely. 

The next week we got a call from Crasborns, the company we were thinning with, and soon we were back in the orchards...where we are now. We picked apples, peaches, pears, and more apples. Now we're in the midst of possibly unionizing for better wages, but we'll see how things turn out - supposedly things should be picking up soon enough. 

Anyway, that's the latest on out work situation. We've got a couple other stories that'll get put up in the next couple of days. Until then-