Arbeit macht frei

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Forgive the crap nature of this blog the brain is having real problems putting the jigsaw puzzle of the last few weeks together. It shouldn’t be too hard as it has followed a similar pattern as the previous couple of months. This does not include the 1st part which is still very fresh in my mind.

This little bit is about Darcy. Darcy is weird. He is sometimes on the good side of weird but in general the wrong side more so after the little conversation we had.

First of all Darcy doesn’t actually live in the actual hostel, he lives under a piece of tarpaulin supported by scaffolding down by the river. Look at the picture it gives you a better idea. He has the look of a stark raving Looney more so when you are talking to him. The best thing about him is that he has this kind of slow release of oxygen laugh. It’s as if his body is actually forcing out air. All in all a conversation with him can be quite unnerving at the best of times. I had already heard the subject matter of this conversation second hand but couldn’t quite believe it. The fact that Darcy told me as well showed that he obviously took pride in this massacre, domestic and wild.

First off he told me he had killed the hostel cat. According to him it was pregnant and he didn’t want flea bitten mongrel cats crawling around everywhere. So instead of facing this scenario he just pulled its neck and chucked it into the river.

Next up is another example of this mans strangeness. It all starts off with the fact that the ducks had been crapping next to his tent (river duhhh). Darcy told me that he had actually spoken to the ducks and told them to stop it and that if they crap near his tent again they will be dead. Sure as sure that they will disobey him he started to train them for imminent death. The ducks are/were a bit shy so Darcy trained them to eat from his hand. A week passed and he could no longer put up with the squalor. Whilst feeding one of the ducks he grabbed it by the neck and in his own words slowly snapped it. At the same time he is also talking to the duck telling it that he was sorry that it had to come to this.

Anyhow I am of a fickle nature so when Darcy also told me he had been a roadie for the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin all was forgiven. In case anyone is wondering Darcy has lived under the tarpaulin for nearly four years or in his words since the stones licks tour came to an end and he realized that his days of been a roadie were over.

I take it back from the previous blog entry. After the 1st day of training at orangewood seemed to drop the proverbial hammer and moved from 1st gear to 5th gear in terms of activity. In all fairness I was never totally Sure how long I would see orchard themed work as a right of passage for a backpacker.

Now when I said Orangewood was grossly overstaffed I didn’t realize that the training day was for both the day and night shift. By day 2 the people on the training day had been split into two teams. Basically in my time there my body took an absolute battering. The place was so dusty my snot turned a queer color. In general I would describe the orange wood pack house as an asylum manned by folks who are a few chips short of portion.

First of all I was working with Kerikeri answer to 50 cent, weird proposition really. His behavior was beyond erratic all night. It was almost as if he had some kind of crazy tick. Anyhow he just spent most of the night rapping away to himself about if I am been honest absolute shit. It wasn’t until the end of the shift that he told us that his frequent trips to the toilet were to dose up on speed. Anyhow by the end of night it had become clear that he had over speeded and was literally propping himself up against a pallet full of boxes sweating profusely. I know you shouldn’t laugh at people with problems like these but it was pure comedy. Anyhow the next day fiddy was relegated to box preparation ( bottom of the pile at orangewood) His strange behavior had obviously not gone unnoticed by Bruce the supervisor. Bruce is just this immense ball of rage, tour de force. This is the kind of bloke that is particularly quotable especially after having a few drinks. He delivered lines that shall go down in infamy such as “the whole fucking job is fucked, get them fucking boxes of the belt” He did look like he had ruptured a few veins in his head and I would have probably done the same if had his job. In terms of supervision required Orangewood is borderline Borstal *. I think it was only when I went outside for a break you realized that many of staff were pretty much stoned even the elders.

At Orangewood I also worked on the reject bin. This involved doing pretty much nothing for 9 hours. I generally just sat there seeing how many Kiwi’s I could stack on top of each other. Four was the record. Now you can laugh but I think five would be an immense personal achievement. However this is/would be impossible I think. I mean four was great but then I did have thousands of obscurely shaped Kiwi’s at my disposal. At the Orangewood factory 18% of all kiwi’s that came through were regarded as rejects and hence came flying in my direction.

It turned out that the person who originally manned the reject bin had been sick everywhere and collapsed but refused medical attention when he came around. Like I say the majority of people had drug issues in that gaff .

I also had a bash at packing kiwi fruit but I don’t think my fingers were nimble enough for this job. I got a bit of verbal off Bruce for man handling the fruit into the box. They must be cupped/ caressed according to Bruce, Swiss Tony. Cupping and caressing wouldn’t be such a problem if the fruit did not come out at such a pace also add the fact that you have to pack exactly 53. In my case it was more like 1,2 miss a few 53. Strangely though my boxes were always bang on when counted by quality control.



Anyhow after 2 weeks I decided it was time to fly the orangewood nest as I was about to kill one of fellow workers.

Since Orangewood I have just generally been working for every orchard in Kerikeri. Alcom, Kerifresh, Kapiro and Brad Davies to name a few. Brad Davies is deemed to be the best by most other people so that is where I am currently. I myself have come to the conclusion that I am just crap at mandarin picking. I mean I am ok but in general my concentration levels drop after about an hour of the day has gone. By this time the sun has come out and it is easy just to catch a mid morning siesta under one of the trees. Post siesta I feel as if my work ethic has left me and output hits an all time low. The other day after missing a few days of work Chris the supervisor gave me a ring asking me where I was and in all fairness it made me feel quite valued! Then he started to probe a little deeper and started inquiring about the whereabouts of the mandarin clippers and mandarin bag. I came to the conclusion that he was more worried about the whereabouts of his tools then the whereabouts of me. Ah what it is to be valued.

I leave the best job till last. This is gardening for two zimbawean blokes. Residential work is generally the best work to get as they pay you in cash and generally treat you a lot better than the orchards. This isnt to hard but it is very much appreciated. Also the vareity of work you do in these jobs tends to vary a bit which is more than can be said of picking a mandarin tree, packing a kiwi box or doing something of that ilk for 8 hours a day. Oh and you get free tea and biscuits which is something not to be sniffed at!!

Oh and the other day i was a potrait model at Kerikeri college. $40 for one hours work, excellent. I was allowed to stay fully clothed and i just sat in various poses whilst people painted me. I think the women who ran the class was expecting me to go starkers but i told her to nick off. I am no prude but it would take significantly more buckaneros than 40 for me to take my clothes. Actually what am i saying?! i would outright refuse.


As of now my travel plans have taken a turn for the better. The plan now is to leave for South America in November and stay till march then fly back to Australia and stay for 5 months or so (logistically retarded I know) then have a little break in Asia before heading back to Blighty sometime in earlyish 2009. Good eh. I

*Bruce isn’t actually called Bruce he is called Rob. More importantly though he did have immense likeness to Bruce Forsyth

goodbye for the now

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Photos

mandarin picking
one of my bins! look at the ammount of green. That is one bad bin

mandarin picking
lock and load its mandarin time at some un godly hour

room 66
best dorm in the place

renard and darcy
friday BBQ

post BBQ fire down on the beach
l-r (bramble,yiya,me,mattias

mandarin picking
me arseing around

pig head
$3.99 at new world, bargain

renard mobile
matauri bay

mandarin picking
german daniel

Comments

[Buckaroo]

Quality stuff coates!