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une 1st - 18th. Tully.
- It's the work, the work, the working life.
I woke on the first day of June at the lovely andin no wat uncomfortable hour of 5AM to begin my almost 3 week stit of banana work. It wasn't quite 3 weeks, I started on a Tuesday meaning the first week was only 4 days long and it would turn out that the Monday of my third and final week was a bank holiday (Queens birthday don't you know) so that would only be a 4 day week as well...I only actually worked a single Monday in my time there. Still, 13 shifts seemed a fair ammount that first morning, as I half-unconciously went through the motions of shovelling breakfast into my mouth and getting stuff together for the day. Pretty much everybody in the hostel has work, or is heading down to the bus stops looking for it, so this early morning time was the most full you'd see the place all day...not that anybody actually spoke to one another, a disgruntled nod is the best you could hope for! It wasn't the best of atmospheres and over the course of these weeks my opinion of the hostel would fall from poor to abysmal. The place, what with its distressed once white now strained grey walls, endless nonscensical rules and lack of windows in the central room I was in (it would have been good to see the rain after all!), was simply depressing. Talk along the lines of 'doing your time' abounded and was true, you'd never really come here by choice, certainly not for more than a couple of nights, and most people were plainly focused on either their bank balance or weeks worked (3 months worth needed for a 2nd year visa), fully knowledgable of the exact point they needed to reach before they could break free. I did exactly this, the date of the 18th quickly became a shineing light which was thankfully not that far in the future, many people stay for 3 months and I met a few who'd been around more than 6 so at least I had a ready reminder that things could be worse!
Ha, sorry if that sounds downbeat at all! You could find some solace in the thought that what with work I wasn't really in the hostel much of the time...however thats only because you haven't read about the work yet! If you didn't like the tone of that first paragraph perhaps its best to look away now...
I jumped on the work bus down near the post office between 5.45 and 6, it would take us around 30 minutes to drive out to the farm and the sound of machinery getting into gear would rench us out of our seats at 6.30. We'd go 2 hours before it surrendered to silence and we'd have breakfast between 8.30 and 9. It'd be another couple of hours before a brief stop for 15 minutes at eleven and then another hour and a half until lunch at 12.45. We'd commence the final stint at 1.15 and come 3.30 everyone would collapse back onto the bus, we'd be away by 3.32 and I'd typically get back in the hostel just gone 4pm. Stoping and starting so frequently did make the day drag somewhat...but I expect they would have dragged no matter how they were arranged and at least this wat you got to keel over fairly regularly...though I expect the majoritys nicotene additions had a more dominant role in sculpting the day.
So...the job then...I guess I must open the memories that relate to it...but know in doing so you may reduce me to being curled up in a ball, energy drink nestled just under my mouth (and considering I write this froma farm 20 minutes drive from the nearest energy drink I hope you appreciate the exertion such a threat involves!) I guess in retrospect it wasn't that bad, I mean I wasn't on the frontline or anything...but did it make me moan at the time! My main job, that took up 90% of my time, involved breaking up the bunchs of bananas. Some background imagry - giant bunchs of bananas (the sort you'd cut froma tree, say three quarters of a metre across and a metre and a half highish) come past hung from a type of conveyor belt, these are then cut into lines and tossed into one of three metal pathways according to size. These pathways are a metre across and run most of the distance of the factory floor, they change as they go on but at the point I worked they were kind of like troughs, about a half metre deep and filled with water, the bananas floating down them to people who quickly examined them and threw defect (bruised, cut, rotting etc...) ones onto a belt that destined them to a rubbish truck whilst the satisfactory ones continued their journey to be packed. Between the person cutting off the giant bunchs and those examing them was myself, when they'd cut them they'd typically be between 8 and 15 bananas in a row and I'd have to seperate them into 4 or 5 long.
That's a long winded and not very clear wat of describing a very simple and monotomous task...its annoying that I can't adequatly get the description down but a fair bit of it is hard to do justice to without seeing as there's no decent allusion I can make...I guess what I'm saying is get a job in a banana factory and you'll understand! Basically I'd spent the whole day within the same 2 metre stretch, hands wristdeep in water seperating/breaking rows of bananas. The minutes passed...but I suppose you'd have heard about it by now if time had ceased its usual flow.
There were 3 chief downsides to this task, beyond the obvious bordeom - sap, position and water. Breaking bananas into water all day inevitably a large ammount of sap becomes dissolved into it, the effect of which is patent when I looked at my hands at the end of the first day and found them wreaked by black and grey...stuff. Annoyingly this didn't simply wash off and it required a good half an hour of hard scrubbing and left you with redish pink hands, I got told that baby lotion helped and it did...hardly fun still! So...gloves from the 2nd day then! These lasted 3 or 4 days per pair until they were simply too glued together with sap to work with...still, the supermarket had them for 2 bucks a pair and I was down there everyday anyway.
Position or, arg me back! Apparently leaning across a metre trough 8 hours each day isn't something my body is accoustomed to and to inform me of its annoyance at such an imposition it colluded/schemed with my back to make me feel not unlike a crumbling old several-bricks missing building - that I could collapse in spectuacular fashion any minute and in the meantime I'm going to creak and groan every 2 minutes! The first day was bad, the second atrocious - raising from being layed down on a couch in the hostel providing a serious challenge. The third day was meerly bad again, the fourth oddly nonconsequencial. After I came back the other side of the first weekend I found that, inspite of the odd jerk here and there, I could do the job with no lingering back pain. Perhaps I'd just got adapted to using muscles, stretchs and postions I'm not used to...or maybe I'd just gone numb! Or perhaps my body had decided to redirect its protest in a much more rotten direction...
Water, sure without it we would die but there's a limit! And that limit is having it thrown in your face every day! Actually the length of such torment lay on who was cutting down the bananas and whether they chose to delicately place them into the trough or smash them in as if they've personally offended them in some manner. Either way its hard to prevent a splash...though the former rarely hit me when I was two metres away! By the time the bus deposited us back near the hostel I would be driping wet and frequently unable to hold back shivering...which at least made the lack of hot water, and as such showers, in the hostel at this time of the day (an utterly ridiculous occurance in a working hostel) didn't matter to me as much as most! I could just about have shrugged this off were it not for the pools at the bottom of my shoes, I ended up alternating between boots and trainers, whilst one was not being worn it was stuffed with newspaper. And so we reach the rotting...take my advice, marinating your feet 8 hours a day don't end well! Actually for the first 2 and a half weeks nothing happened, however with 2 shifts to go I spotted red unpleasent splotchs on the bottom of my right foot. I pushed through the end...and was rewarded by more splotch on and inbetween my toes. It didn't hirt at all (unless you really jabbed your finger into it!) and, with a little help from some mild steroid cream, would massively recede within 48 hours and be gone a week later. Still...definately time for a career change!
On rare occasions I did different tasks. Once for a couple of hours I was hanging the bunchs, which involved untying the bags they'd been brought in from the fields within, atatching ropes and using a mechanical device to winch them up onto the passing hooks. I didn't enjoy thus too much because you had to be fast to keep up with the pace of the hooks going by...ahhh! Pressure! Thankfully I didn't have the pleasure of a repeat performance! For longer periods, a whole day when several English people didn't show up because they were in mourning about the world cup, I also found myself taking the bags off the bunchs. Thats about as complex as it sounds, bunch passes, slip off bag and put on pile, repeat, repeat, repeat. There was an occasional break in the routeen when the pile got big so I rolled and tied it up and threw it into a metal cage store...thrilling I'm sure you'll agree! At least it was reasonably dry though...apart from when there'd be pockets of water in the bags which would explode in my face as I pulled at the things! Twice we also rode out into the paddock and went 'tying.' All the trees have lenghts of thick string on them and you simply tye these to the diagonally nearest adjacent tree. This was actually a pretty decent job, I mean you could see the sky and everything...just a pity it wasn't where I spent the majority of my time!
If I ever fely like it was all getting a tad too much there was always a host of animals on hand to turn to for comfort. These typically entered my life whilst floating won the trough but occasionally skipped such formality and jumped up my leg instead. There were the treefrogs, from green to brown, massive fullgrown to speck-esque young. These were unceasingly cute and the distraction of moving them away provided one of the few positive aspects of the job. The spiders were present but inconspicuous and rarely drew my attention. Rats were even more private, quickly bolting for cover when exposed, but for 3 deceased ones this was not overly an option. Two were nestled in the bottom of a crate so i could could simply give a small 'thats life' reflective nod and continue about my day but the one floating down the torugh was another matter entirely. Of coruse I was the only fool idiotic enough to be wearing gloves so the honour of removing it fell to me. As I sifted it out of the water most of the body, already looking less than stable, finally gave out to decomposition and splodged outwards into a half-liquid grey ooze. As i quickly got rid of this 'interesting' ooze mit head, legs and tail former creature I gave a wide eyed crumpled forehead '...lovely' grimace and then continued about my day.
Finally there were also the snakes. I'm not positive (or, I don't have the foggiest) about what type they were but, to me at least, they were big. Upon hearing a shout the supervisor would stroll over and pick 'em up, holding them out from head height they would reach the floor and often coil halfway back up again...he wasn't a tall man but never the less...not what you want to mistake for a banana. For some reason we seemed to find more at the start of the week but typically we'd find none or lots (lots being 4 to 6 across the day.) I'm not sure if they were dangerous as such. The supervisor didn't seem to consider tem as such if his flipant relation to them was anything to go by, perhaps best illustrated in the occasion he threw one out into the field, was met 2 minutes later with the dissapointment of one worker who had gone to get a camera (I never took my camera in, I'm not a woman so don't reckon I'd have gotten away with such unproductive behaviour plus I don't think it and the wet would have got on) and so promptly went back into the field and brought it back in. Now you'd think that would mean it was harmless...but considering the type of person he seemed to be I wouldn't place good money on it!
There were days off. I drank energy drink. They passed.
...So rhat about wraps up this advertisment...you want the job then? I didn't, it was easily the worst job I've ever had...but...its kinda funny now...i expect in a decade or two it will sink to being unsullied funny. It was brief. Its over. I needed cash. I made some...it was an experience! So...escape from Tully surely?
...to be continued....
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