04.10.2010
It’s around 10am on a hot and windy Saturday here in Katherine, the first day on which I have the time and energy to resume writing. My fingers are more dry and callused than they were the last time they flew over these keys and my leg is propped up on a chair next to me, a hot compress wrapped around my ankle and shin with a sarong. A little work related injury has bought me my first 2 days off after 7days of work, on the last of which the machine we are working with backed up over my foot and up till the middle of my shin. A scary and painful experience which my clumsy little self does not intend on repeating. But a day in bed with hot compresses and massages with Asian balms that burn like crazy have fixed me all up again and this morning I was almost able to walk normally again. Should be back on my feet and on the field tomorrow.
A week ago at 6am, we were finally sitting in the bus on the way to the Manbulloo Limited mango farm, just 15mins away from our caravan park. Waking up that early was a bit of a pain, especially because of the very lazy week we had spent waiting for the fruit to ripen. Decked out in jeans, long sleeves, a bright orange vest and my new hat, I was quite excited to get-a-pickin’. Before they let us loose on their trees though, the big boss of the farm, a very friendly short lady named Marie, and some supervisors showed us the machines we’d be working with. The Harvest Aid is a big bulky contraption with a crow’s nest on top next to the driver’s spot, from which the mangoes in the tops of the trees can be picked using a picking stick (a long stick with a clipper at the end with which one can cut the stem and grasp it at the same time). Then there is a blue tarp with water jets about 2m by 2.5m is stretched up vertically on one side and another, a bit smaller one is stretched out perpendicular right beneath it. When a mango is picked by hand, it should be snapped off with a flick of the wrist facing away from you. You then have 3s to throw is against the large tarp and let it fall onto the smaller one. It is crucial that the mango immediately gets put into water, so the sap that squirts out of where the fruit was attached to the stem doesn’t damage the skin of the fruit or the picker. From there it rolls into a little alley where a strong jet of water pushes it into a tub of water. The water is prepared with a chlorine based solution called Desap, which cleans the fruit and makes sure that the sap flow is stopped. The mangoes have to be in water 30 seconds from the moment they are picked till they hit the bin, to make sure they don’t sap on the other fruits. Now, more often than not, girls working in mango picking are given the job of the de-sapper – and so was I. My job attire differs a tad from that of the pickers; I have to wear a thick white plastic apron and rubber gloves, to protect me from the sap squirts and to keep me somewhat dry. My job description is a bit different as well; I don’t pick fruit from the trees, or more like, I’m not allowed to pick fruit from the trees. I wait till it falls into the tub of water, remove the rest stem if there is one (holding it submerged to avoid the sap squirting into my eyes or onto my skin) and make sure that the mango has been in the water for at least 30s (and that it hasn’t been in there too long, otherwise it would get chlorine burn) before I roll it down onto a conveyor belt where it takes its last journey, is given a last shower before dropping into a big white bin.
The first hours of work were spent with training, explaining, observing (a team of Nepalese who had worked here last season) and standing in the sun trying not to fall asleep and hoping to start soon. Finally, we got divided into teams of five, were dropped off in a block of trees and started our first day of work… And then the second and then the third… I was lucky enough to be part of a team which was declared a permanent team in the first week. The thing is, in the first week or two of the season, most of the fruit isn’t ready yet and one has to be very careful about what is picked. The mangoes from Manbulloo are exported all over the world, especially to China, Japan and some European countries. They have to be picked at a point where they can be processed and travel for four weeks and still ripen to a tasty, juicy yellow fruit. Indicators for a mature enough fruit are a light lime green color around the tip, a rosy blush at the top and a nice and round full shape (like a “big booty” as our supervisors tell us). This is however not as easy as it sounds and in the first days, we were often told that we were picking too skinny or green mangoes… And because the farm means business and sending out many teams that pick too much useless fruit isn’t exactly very economical, many teams were rotated in the first week. And I ended up the only backpacker that got to work every day.
After only two days the starting time was moved up to 6:30am, meaning we had to leave the farm by 5:30am, meaning our alarms started ringing around 5am. As ungodly the hour might be, after only 2 days I actually started waking up before my alarm. As soon as that familiar tune starts ringing and I have to get up and jump into my very battered jeans, another day in the life of a mango picker starts. A short hike to the bathroom, a quick bowl of cereal and a double check that all I need is packed later and I am sitting in the bus with a whole bunch of other tired people. The moon is still up and the stars are still twinkling, mocking me for not being snuggly tucked in my bed and happily off in dreamland somewhere. There are no street lamps along the way and the roads are only illuminated by our headlights. Occasionally, we swerve or break so the kamikaze kangaroo jumping across the street can enjoy another day of his bouncy little life. By the time we’re driving down the old runway leading up to the farm, the sun is rising turning the sky all kinds of vibrancy. There are usually some clouds that turn pink, whose outlines glow neon orange, but after one or two days of marveling at the sky after getting off the bus at the farm, I’m more concentrated on finding a cup of lukewarm coffee and making sure I can use the bathroom facilities before heading out to the field. I clock in using a little gray keychain-computer chip which registers my name when I wave it in front of a little black box; the display then shows “Roxanna Schiffever IN/OUT”, making sure I know that I have just arrived or am about to go back home… It is still too dark to distinguish mango from apple and I wonder how the pickers will know what to snap off the tree. But by the time our big white vans take us deep into the mango tree maze and drop us off at the machines standing silently, ready to weave in and out the orchard, dawn has shed its light on a new day and it is time for me to wake up.
Depending on the aisle, I’m either walking behind the machine, keeping pace while concentrating on my busy hands that are searching the suds for the sap oozing mangoes. Snapping off a stem here, rolling one down the metal ramp there. Every once in a while I have to scoot around to the other side of the tub to free some mangos stuck swirling in the corner or to paddle around the tub to hurry those bobbing buoyant booties along. Other times, I’m walking in front of the machine, side stepping or even inching along backwards, while still de-sapping and keeping an eye on my responsibilities. This can get a bit tricky at times, as the paths we drive upon are not paved, but are humpy and bumpy and filled with little bundles of tall grass, potholes, anthills and even small trees which I end up straddling if we just happen to stop at that spot… If we pass through a particularly good and fruitful lane and the four people picking are milking the tree for all it’s got, I find my hands moving at a pace I have never seen them move, trying to clear the tub that is backing up with an abundance of mangoes. No time to think, not thinking about time, not even noticing the fact that I’m standing on an anthill and have big fat black ants crawling up my pants until they start gnawing on me… It is also my job to let the pickers know if the fruit they are picking is acceptable or not. Often enough I call up to Siti, my driver, team leader and Malaysian older sister, “too skinny” or “too green” or “too small” or “hey, I don’t want to see this kind of stuff anymore!”… The first hours are actually fun, watching your first bins fill up, the trees still able to give me some shade along the way (except on the third and fourth day, where we picked in a block with 2-3m trees that hardly had any canopy), the majority of the flies still asleep. I do have some time to observe what is my workplace for the next weeks, but all that is really there are rows and rows of mango trees. Sometimes cockatoos or eagles fly above us, sometimes we are visited by an Australian wild turkey, a pretty big bird that looks like a mixture of a emu and a heron (bird lovers and knowers out there please don’t judge ignorant little me). We take our first break at 10am (or 9:30), the so-called “Smoke’O” named after the most popular activity undertaken during these 15min. The thundering roar of the machine is silenced, we gather in the shade of a mango tree and I usually listen to conversations in Bahasa Indonesia and don’t understand anything (except for the words they have already taught me or that are similar to those in Tagalog). Too bad 15 minutes pass so very quickly. The toughest hours by far are the hour and a half before lunch – the heat suddenly increases, my stomach starts grumbling, I’m soaked through and through in sweat and de-sapping water. By 12noon my thoughts are fixated upon how long I will last in this job and how I will probably end up quitting soon. I’m swatting flies out of my face every few seconds, if I’m very lucky minutes. I can get used to the ants that are all over the trees and ground, that bite and hurt and I can flick away. I can get used to the little (and big and very big) black bugs that scuttle across the dirt and between the dried leaves, that run up and down the tree trunk so quickly you know you couldn’t stop it from crawling up your leg if it got to your shoe. I can get used to the crickets that bounce of your back and head or visit you on your shoulder during lunch or even end up bouncing around in your pants (yes, I’ve had a very bouncy happy cricket in my pants). I can even get used to the spider-webs that adorn the trees and the big fat spiders that sit in the middle of them, clicking their tiny but scary fang-claw-thingies together. But flies… I know every creature on earth has its purpose. But how important can those pesky black buggers be? The buzzing alone is so annoying that it make my head shake like a stubborn four-year old. They seem to love flying straight into the facial openings – eyes, ears, nose and mouth. And at least thrice a day I think to myself, that if another fly should land on my lips I will eat it, just so there is one less to pester me. I almost feel violated every time one manages to land in my face and starts crawling around on my cheek, forehead or nose. And since my job has me wet up to my elbows all day, I end up swatting myself with chlorinated water or sappy fingers trying to get rid of the thing… This problem will hopefully soon be solved, as one of the German packers has offered to lend me his fly screen thing – an offer which I’ll be more than glad to accept… Lunch break starts at 1pm and is my half an hour of heaven. I eat whatever I had cooked up the day before and brought in my little Tupperware – curry rice with veggie stir fry, pasta, sandwiches, egg and salad, asian-style tuna salad – and then lie down, cover my face with my little towel to hide from the flies and dose, listening to the leaves and whatever crawls around them crackle beneath my head. The two most interesting encounters with the creepy crawly kind were those of a gigantic hissing cockroach (the size of an egg – I kid you not!) which left behind a nasty smell when one of the Indonesians grabbed it and threw it far far away, and a walking stick the length of my hand, which stalked by me between its immobile flora doppelgangers… The hour after lunch is also tough, having to get up again from almost passing out, having to leave the cool(er) shade of the tree, suit up and head back out into the blistering heat, having to work and walk while digesting. Our water is changed to “Squincher”(the name kind of made me think of something that would be used for Potions class or at the infirmary at Hogwarts), a Gatorade-like drink to replenish lost minerals and electrolytes, in the afternoon – doping to keep us going. The afternoon is hot and not matter how much I drink during the day – usually around a liter in one and a half hours – I only have to ask a supervisor to drive me to one of the port-a-potties a maximum of twice a day. By our second Smoke’O at 3pm, my spirits are lifted because I know the day is almost over and I have made it once again. By the last hour I’m more hanging on the machine, letting myself be dragged or pushed by the machine while plucking stems off mangoes and sending them on their way. And by the time we park our baby, I have just about enough energy to take off my apron and jump into the van. We spend a few minutes back at the shed, have a cigarette, sign out - “Roxanna Schiffever Out”, wave hello to our packer friends that usually work a few hours longer than us (but start later of course) and drive back to home sweet homestead. Although my knees are killing me and I’m tired and sore and the first thing my roommates tell me when I walk through out gate is “Oh Sana, you look tired”, I do not sit down quite yet. The Tupperware has to be washed and refilled, meaning I cook my dinner for the evening/lunch for the next day, wash my work clothes by hand every few days (and am amazed over and over again of how much dirt and grime one pair of pants can soak up) and then, the last feat of the day – go take a long shower. By then, it is usually around 6:30 or 7:00pm and I feel as though it is 9:00 or 10:00pm. I go hang out by the other kitchen for a while and am then off to bed to read two pages, listen to 10minutes of “Die Drei ???” or watch 15minutes of a series before falling asleep with my book on my chest or my earphones on my head, iPod or laptop still on.
After only 7 days of work, I have taken so much with me. Aside from the little sap burn on my arm (though I am very lucky and not as susceptible to the burns – the two Korean girls in my room are covered in them), rough skin from all the sun and chlorinated water, stressed hair from being soaked in sweat all day, the bruised and bandaged foot, ankle and leg and a new embarrassing bedtime of 9:30pm, I have been productive, played an important part in a chain of events leading up to people enjoying Australian mangoes all over the world, I have met many different types of people and have gotten back in touch with my Asian side being submerged in an (almost) all Asian team, I know now that I am tougher than I thought I was, I’ve earned more money in 7 days than I did in a month in Berlin, I have celebrated a birthday Korean-style, I have copied a ton of films and series from many different hard drives, I have eaten homemade Indian chapatti with curry, I have improved my French comprehension skills (especially when it comes to colloquial speech) majorly, I have used my knowledge of linguistics to solve little translation and comprehension problems, I have gotten great tips for further picking and packing seasons, I have become homesick for the first time since I arrived here in Australia, due to the monotony of the days out here and I am getting closer to feeling out what I want to do with myself. I want to experience and I want to write and I want to observe, understand and become words. Though my system of recording what I see, do, hear, smell, taste, touch and feel is still in need of improvement, I find myself writing all day. On a little notepad in my head, I take notes and formulate paragraphs in my head, cursing the fact that I don’t have a pen and paper with me (which would only get wet if I brought it out on the Harvest Aid) because sadly I do tend to forget them by the time I’m sitting in front of my laptop. I take pictures in my mind and give them captions, knowing they will stay only mine (because the camera would just wet). I tell myself stories along the way, dreaming up non-fiction and wondering if others would care to listen in.
