Crazy, this place is crazy. It’s good, but also crazy. I am writing with a german keyboard, and the Z and Y are in different places, I even ment to write Y first then Z, it’s a strange keyboard. Anyway, i am changing, the people around me are again, affecting me, heavily. Country people, the french man Justin quoted, “Alwayz fuck fuck fuck, fuck.“ To Butch, the 54 year-old, old–timer picker, abronginal man living in the same farm as us. Good fella, great fella, very honest, but rough with his words. A great man, but it saddens me when I know that if I was a homosexual, I would have a very different treatment from him. Pofter, that’s the word they use for “the gay people“ Butch said.
They say a lot here, “That pofter“ “You pofter“ they keep saying. A lot of hate in them, sad.
But I can see the good side of’em. And I am (as in my physical presence on Earth, Ahmed) slowly changing to who they are, rough, always swearing, full of hatred (or un-understanding) towards their illusion of enemies. I found myself trying to race my friend in fruit-picking, and feeling jealousy and annoyance of some of Justin’s actions. I am observing it, obviously this journey is here to heal my male-ego, and return the balance within myself.
Back to physical realiy, the more interesting and fun side, I am still smoking lots of ganja, everyday, can’t help it, it always come back to me. I am beginging to think I am a bit too open. It’s all good though, still wake up 6am in the morning healthy, awake, and ready for another hard day. Lately, I have picked Peaches, Apricots, Plums, and TOMATOES! They are captilzied beacuse they were a pain in the back, you gotta “put your ass above your head“ they say. Simply means you bend your back a lot to pick them tomatoes. Good experience though, picked up a couple of pumpkins (2 days after, we had pumpkin curry, with onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, mixed beans and smooth and lovely coconut cream. Plus rice), 3 cucumbers, a bunch of tomatoes of course, a solo eggplant, and a big fucking zuccinni, so big it’s name changes to “Maro“ (or something like that, but crazy, no?).
(And after an hour I smashed it with a golf club, it was inedible anyway)
We also ate grass parrots, hunted and killed by our very own italian boss. I went through the stage of de-feathering them, cutting their stomach area to get all the guts, heart, and lungs out, with a finger, burning them lightly to re-clean the feathers from the skin, chop their head, legs, and wings off, stick it in a pot with some potatoes and onions, maybe carrots, and you get a really good grass parrots stew. I hope I don’t get stuck in this mind-state.
We worked a bit more, still picking, got a good amount of money, and smoked a bit more dope.
Life is good, no matter who surrounds you, even when you miss your friends back there where you can’t look at their eyes and smile in appreciation of their presence. I am finding myself feeling love from other people, because I accept who they are, or my face does. But my mind is haunted by thoughts of judgements towards them.
Although, we did have a nice day at the pool yesterday (Saturday, I am writing this on Sunday, but I would probably publish online on Tuesday. Sorry for the confusion), swam myself breathless, ate more sausages (we have been eating sausages for the past 5 days) played the card game Speed, the AWOeSommE game my older sister taught me and kicked my ass in, with other peeps, lost, and decided to jump in the pool again, this time swimming backwards in a slow relaxing motion. Very nice, I thought.
Although, 3 days ago, me and Justin were picking peaches, and came up with a “Shout“ for fruit picking, it went:
Up and down the ladder we go,
Picking fruit and that’s what we do.
We laughed on certain subjects, like Stan…
-- 10 days ago, Stan came in the picture, a German young man with a light black beard and bright blue eyes. He was a villigant man, looking for truth and asking many questions. Having never learnt how to cook proper dinner, Ahmed and Justin worked towards teaching the German young man on The Art of Cooking. Problem is, sometimes he asked a bit too many questions, leaving his fellow friends with a slight frown, adding to the already excisting frown manifested by the sun’s heat and rays. But Stan was willing to learn, and that was good. --
… being funny sometimes like a cartoon charactor, or predicting how long is going to take to fill this freaking bin with fist-full sized peaches, or about our friends back home, or our weird, yet epic, experiences we had in our life, or about how funny is the word given to italians here “WOGS“, otherwise proudly indentified by our italian boss as “people who like cash“, which explained after our question to him (9 days ago) “Why are you paying us cash?“.
2 weeks ago we also met Kevin, a 14 years veteran of fruit picking, half were which done in New Zealand, his home country. Good guy, he offered to show me around the north of the South Island when I visit in 1 year and a half.
Back to the end of this present, we are listening to good music and fighting the flies with “Fly Papers“ (sticky papers that hang from the cealing and holds down any fly that touches it, there is plenty of them.), and smoking ciggis. Time for me to disappear from the computer reality to the other one.
January 24, 2011
January 13, 2011
Journey to the country and beer!
I haven't been in contact with much people because I have been living out in the country, where the dust is harsh and the sun is blistering, where your hands are always dirty and you wear the same clothes for 3 days minimal, where the cows moo and the wind blows freely.
I have been in Melbourne for a while, but I am not going to talk about that much, I will only say I was discovering some cool things like Lentil As Anything, a restaurant where you pay as much as you feel like to a box, and I volunteered there, and if you do for at least one day a week, you can eat for free the whole week. I have much more to say about that place, but I will leave it for now, for the country holds interesting events.
So I started my first job at a farm in Kyabram, north of Victoria, picking apricots. It wasn't too bad, but we had a shit boss that wouldn't tell us that we didn't have 4 days of work until a day before. May the spirit be with him, but I decided to go back to Melbourne. I was low on money by then, $150 I think, partied new years there with heaps of African people, and Jeremy and Allay, cool people, you might know Jeremy, some of you. Then I got another job on Monday (two days after new years), in Shepparton, the main north town (close to Kyabram, or Kyabram is close to it). This girl finds jobs for backpackers, we pay her $40 for a job (if it's at least 2 weeks). It was easy, I thought...
I arrived at night, I got picked up and dropped off at a Caravan Park (I thought I was staying in the farm), didn't complain, got a tent, but it was too dark to put it up, so I slept with my sleeping bag under the stars, very romantic if I didn't have the wind blowing really hard and the mosquitoes biting harder, plus I had a big headache, only slept for 4 hours I think, maybe less.
Woke up in the morning, my mom called me, talked to her for a while (she found it funny that I was working in farms now) Then my ride to the farm came while I was on the phone, so I had to run to get my stuff ready (I thought it was coming in an hour), and I had a big load of vegies from Melbourne in my tent (no refrigeration), so I just took what I could eat raw, celery, banana, and ... ciggis where my lunch.
Yes I am smoking more now.
That's when I met Justin, my companion, he was confused about the ride too, and he came in last. He sat near me and said "Hello Boy!" in a country French accent (later I discovered) I worked with him that day, and everyday since. He is a funny big guy, doesn't talk much English, so I had to talk to him in simple broken English, I started talking to everyone like that after a while. He owns a farm in France that plants one of the most famous flowers sold in Paris, he slaughter cows and sells their meat, he (used) to smoke lots of ganja, and had 18 plants outside his farm on the public road (so if the cops come and see them, he can claim it's not his, because it's on public property), and he has a spa!
Anyway, we both moved to the farm (to live in) the second day we arrived, he was as poor as me, and we ate food together. The place where we were living had an outside kitchen, with no water (in the kitchen) no hot water in the toilet, and not much to cook with, but enough, and we were happily satisfied because it was cheap.
We picked for 4 days on this farm, the apricots farm. Here how picking fruit works, you pick lots of them and fill up a "half-bin", which takes us (two people) around 1.5 hours to fill, depending on our motivation and energy, and you get paid depending on the fruit, in the case of apricots, its $30 (before tax). Not much pay, but then again, you don't spend much time, and it makes you work harder. Me and Justin were doing 7 bins a day, motivating ourselves by having a ciggi after each bin finished.
During our stay in the farm, there was Thaw (not sure if that was his name, sometimes we called him Boy, or Justin did, and I followed) he was a NZ old man that had a bottle of VB beer every time we saw him (even sometimes when he was picking). He was an old timer picker, many years of picking. At some point he offered us to borrow his van, me and Justin take it for a ride around the country to find jobs, just me and Justin. We were very excited, Justin thought Thaw was coming with us half the time, and he was as excited as me, imagine how excited he was when it was just me and him.
We got really excited... we talked about the places we will go, Mildura, Adelaide, about what we are going to do, discover winerys, pick oranges! it was beautiful.
Not until the day we were leaving. Becky (the girl that got us jobs) came and said we can work for a day in another farm after we finish (now it's Thursday), and she also offered me a permanent job at the farm for 3 months, it sounded nice, but travelling with the van sounded nicer. So we decided we will go with the van to the other farm, work one day, and then head off.
Thaw that day decided he want to join us, after having 4 big bottles of beers, he wanted to make sure we are ok. An irish guy, Mathew, was working with us, and he asked him to come so he can drive him back (since he was too drunk + has no licenses, that's why he was ok with lending us his van, Thaw that is). We packed up everything, I forgot my towel, and Thaw drove, claiming he was going to show Justin how to drive it. He drove half of the way, and half of the time we were silent, the other half we were constantly asking him to stop and let Justin drive... No use. At last, he stopped, Justin drove, we couldn't find the farm, so we went back to Shepparton, we (me and Justin) asked to be dropped at a "MarketPlace" (where Woolies is at) then we called Becky and begged her to drop us at the farm.
By then we forgot about the van idea, and plotted to both get the permanent position in the farm, everything was changing so fast around me, my head was spinning, I was feeling bad for dragging Justin with me, but he said "is ok, no worries". It was comforting, I found it really easy to trust him.
So we got to the farm, there was a place to live, we were going to stay in our tents, it was around 9pm now, where the sun was setting down, two old pickers, Ben and Boch, were drinking beer and smoking joints, appeared, and me and Justin gave a big smile to each other, "this place is going to be good" i said, and he nodded his head happily with a grin. So normally, we joined them and drank beer and smoked joints, it was a great first night, and we heard many stories from them. It was hard for Justin to understand, but he was happy to sit and watch, and he would tell everyone "i no speak english, you are my teacher!".
This continued until last night (today is Friday), the drinking of beer/wine and smoking joints every night, and we have been working during the day doing weeding and maintaining the trees, sometimes stopping because of the heavy rain.
Anyway, i have to leave now, library closing, but i hope everyone is well down in Brisbane, and everyone is well in their journeys. I miss Brisbane a lot, and I hope to come down as soon as my journey is finished.
The sky is blue now, we will work hard the coming days.
I have been in Melbourne for a while, but I am not going to talk about that much, I will only say I was discovering some cool things like Lentil As Anything, a restaurant where you pay as much as you feel like to a box, and I volunteered there, and if you do for at least one day a week, you can eat for free the whole week. I have much more to say about that place, but I will leave it for now, for the country holds interesting events.
So I started my first job at a farm in Kyabram, north of Victoria, picking apricots. It wasn't too bad, but we had a shit boss that wouldn't tell us that we didn't have 4 days of work until a day before. May the spirit be with him, but I decided to go back to Melbourne. I was low on money by then, $150 I think, partied new years there with heaps of African people, and Jeremy and Allay, cool people, you might know Jeremy, some of you. Then I got another job on Monday (two days after new years), in Shepparton, the main north town (close to Kyabram, or Kyabram is close to it). This girl finds jobs for backpackers, we pay her $40 for a job (if it's at least 2 weeks). It was easy, I thought...
I arrived at night, I got picked up and dropped off at a Caravan Park (I thought I was staying in the farm), didn't complain, got a tent, but it was too dark to put it up, so I slept with my sleeping bag under the stars, very romantic if I didn't have the wind blowing really hard and the mosquitoes biting harder, plus I had a big headache, only slept for 4 hours I think, maybe less.
Woke up in the morning, my mom called me, talked to her for a while (she found it funny that I was working in farms now) Then my ride to the farm came while I was on the phone, so I had to run to get my stuff ready (I thought it was coming in an hour), and I had a big load of vegies from Melbourne in my tent (no refrigeration), so I just took what I could eat raw, celery, banana, and ... ciggis where my lunch.
Yes I am smoking more now.
That's when I met Justin, my companion, he was confused about the ride too, and he came in last. He sat near me and said "Hello Boy!" in a country French accent (later I discovered) I worked with him that day, and everyday since. He is a funny big guy, doesn't talk much English, so I had to talk to him in simple broken English, I started talking to everyone like that after a while. He owns a farm in France that plants one of the most famous flowers sold in Paris, he slaughter cows and sells their meat, he (used) to smoke lots of ganja, and had 18 plants outside his farm on the public road (so if the cops come and see them, he can claim it's not his, because it's on public property), and he has a spa!
Anyway, we both moved to the farm (to live in) the second day we arrived, he was as poor as me, and we ate food together. The place where we were living had an outside kitchen, with no water (in the kitchen) no hot water in the toilet, and not much to cook with, but enough, and we were happily satisfied because it was cheap.
We picked for 4 days on this farm, the apricots farm. Here how picking fruit works, you pick lots of them and fill up a "half-bin", which takes us (two people) around 1.5 hours to fill, depending on our motivation and energy, and you get paid depending on the fruit, in the case of apricots, its $30 (before tax). Not much pay, but then again, you don't spend much time, and it makes you work harder. Me and Justin were doing 7 bins a day, motivating ourselves by having a ciggi after each bin finished.
During our stay in the farm, there was Thaw (not sure if that was his name, sometimes we called him Boy, or Justin did, and I followed) he was a NZ old man that had a bottle of VB beer every time we saw him (even sometimes when he was picking). He was an old timer picker, many years of picking. At some point he offered us to borrow his van, me and Justin take it for a ride around the country to find jobs, just me and Justin. We were very excited, Justin thought Thaw was coming with us half the time, and he was as excited as me, imagine how excited he was when it was just me and him.
We got really excited... we talked about the places we will go, Mildura, Adelaide, about what we are going to do, discover winerys, pick oranges! it was beautiful.
Not until the day we were leaving. Becky (the girl that got us jobs) came and said we can work for a day in another farm after we finish (now it's Thursday), and she also offered me a permanent job at the farm for 3 months, it sounded nice, but travelling with the van sounded nicer. So we decided we will go with the van to the other farm, work one day, and then head off.
Thaw that day decided he want to join us, after having 4 big bottles of beers, he wanted to make sure we are ok. An irish guy, Mathew, was working with us, and he asked him to come so he can drive him back (since he was too drunk + has no licenses, that's why he was ok with lending us his van, Thaw that is). We packed up everything, I forgot my towel, and Thaw drove, claiming he was going to show Justin how to drive it. He drove half of the way, and half of the time we were silent, the other half we were constantly asking him to stop and let Justin drive... No use. At last, he stopped, Justin drove, we couldn't find the farm, so we went back to Shepparton, we (me and Justin) asked to be dropped at a "MarketPlace" (where Woolies is at) then we called Becky and begged her to drop us at the farm.
By then we forgot about the van idea, and plotted to both get the permanent position in the farm, everything was changing so fast around me, my head was spinning, I was feeling bad for dragging Justin with me, but he said "is ok, no worries". It was comforting, I found it really easy to trust him.
So we got to the farm, there was a place to live, we were going to stay in our tents, it was around 9pm now, where the sun was setting down, two old pickers, Ben and Boch, were drinking beer and smoking joints, appeared, and me and Justin gave a big smile to each other, "this place is going to be good" i said, and he nodded his head happily with a grin. So normally, we joined them and drank beer and smoked joints, it was a great first night, and we heard many stories from them. It was hard for Justin to understand, but he was happy to sit and watch, and he would tell everyone "i no speak english, you are my teacher!".
This continued until last night (today is Friday), the drinking of beer/wine and smoking joints every night, and we have been working during the day doing weeding and maintaining the trees, sometimes stopping because of the heavy rain.
Anyway, i have to leave now, library closing, but i hope everyone is well down in Brisbane, and everyone is well in their journeys. I miss Brisbane a lot, and I hope to come down as soon as my journey is finished.
The sky is blue now, we will work hard the coming days.
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