20 Pictures from a summer that won`t be forgotten- Part 9
Twist Brothers Strawberries. Logan and I found these strawberries in a specialty grocery store in Hobart, Tasmania. 2000 kilometers from Chevallum, QLD. I nudged Logan and we both starred. I whipped out my camera and took a picture. An employee walked by us and said,
"You think our strawberries are special do you?"
We both looked at him, aware that we looked like raging idiots. You don't understand, I wanted to say. I picked these strawberries. I worked for this company and it was simultaneously one of the worst and one of the best times of my life. To find them here, far away, is just a reminder of it all.
I picked those strawberries.
Logan and I worked on a farm for seven weeks picking strawberries. I got up every morning at 5:45am, ate breakfast, made lunch. Was out at the front tying on my boots at 6:20, said hi to Luke who walked out yawning to say goodbye before he went surfing, and off we went. Two vans full of people heading off to work. We drove twenty five minutes, got there, signed in, put our lunch and water on the truck, put on some sunscreen, got our gear and at seven am, we were standing in a row, one amongst the many and Brad the boss yelled "ADDIO" and we were off. 9:30 we had a fifteen minute break. Noon we had lunch. Around 2:15 you waited to hear if they would call another break. If they did it mean we worked until four. If they didn't it meant you got off at 2:30. They never told us in advance.
It was hard work. Hard manual labour. When I started off we pruned. You went through the rows with a pair of pruners and you took of the "runners and the spotty leaves" and were sure to "don't cut the flowers. The flowers are the strawberries." I did that for two weeks. After that we picked. We picked everyday. We had a huge metal basket and we picked.
There were four farms: Humptie, Revella Two, Main Farm and Highway Patch. With 90 people we could pick it all in four days. One million plants. The farms were all separated from each other, so when you finished one, you'd go to your van and drive to the next one. There were one or two minutes down the road, but they docked us fifteen minutes for travel time.
Twist had several rules which were written on the side of the truck for emphasis:
Always pick with two hands
We do work in the rain
If you can't work and talk at the same time, don't talk.
My back ached. My legs ached. I got a tan. I got thin. I got muscles. Every day after work I went to the beach.
Days off were special. You never knew when they were coming. We would gossip the whole day. Around 90 people worked there, and I ended up talking to all of them at one point. And we would gossip. "I heard we were going to get Wednesday off."
"I heard Tuesday."
"I heard Elaine say maybe Thursday and Friday."
You'd never know until we were done for the day and Brad and Elaine would call out, "No work tomorrow."
Which meant it was time to go home and dream about what you would do with no work. Buy a box of wine, and party out in the front yard.
There were politics going on there. Mostly Aussie-Queensland politics. Brad, the boss, was a white Queensland Aussie and he hated foreigners and women. Which was unfortunate as most people there were foreigners and about half were women. He'd never yell at a girl though, he'd only yell at the boys, he just made the girls feel stupid.
At any given time he could come up to and say "Whaddya know?" And you would stumble, "Uh, I don't know."
"That's what I thought." He'd reply smuggly and stride off. I kept coming up with things to tell him, and eventually he stopped asking.
Did you know the first big blockbuster art exhibition was curated by Hitler?
That balabusta means housewife in yiddish?
More people die from vending machine accidents than shark attacks?
That aztecs believed there were made from corn so if children died they left them in the corn fields?
One time I was picking a row and a guy from Finland was picking the row next to mine. Brad was picking the row adjacent. He starts chatting with the Finnish guy.
"Do you have a monarchy in Finland?"
"No, we have a president?"
"Oh, what's his name?"
"Her."
"Excuse me?" He's starting to get confused now.
"Our president is a woman."
Brad stops work for a moment. Stares.
"You have a bitch president? That says something about the men of your country if you have a bitch for a president."
At this point the Premier of Queensland was a woman. Three weeks later the Prime Minister of Australia was a woman. I wonder what that says about him.
He hated foreigners more. Hated to hear any language other than English. He'd walk up to them "Blah, blah, blah, speak English!"
"Speak english, or don't speak anything at all!"
Elaine was a Twist. Her husband was a Twist brother. She was the real brains behind the operation, but tried to never look mean, she'd just tell Brad to yell at us. She always sure to remind us that there were a hundred people on the waiting list and that any of them would love to have our job.
I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I worked on a farm. Glad I worked in a different country. Glad that I got to live in a working hostel and meet the people I did. Glad that I have an idea about where food comes from and what hard work it is.
