Snow Peas and the Drunken Poet

I guess I can chalk up one more misadventure to my already long list. Last week Larry and I decided to take jobs picking snow peas near a town called Maffra a couple hours east of Melbourne. I'm getting sick of saying this, but the situation looked shaky from the start. Larry and I would have been living in a very dirty and smelly apartment with the guy who hired us, but Dan, an English guy about our age, had also shown up when we did, and it was thought best to keep us together. We were instead put in a medium sized house with seven Taiwanese and a French guy. This place had a smallish kitchen, one bathroom, and hadn't been cleaned in a long time due to being inhabited solely by migrant workers, yet was more livable than the apartment.

We were supposed to work the day after we got there, but according to the subcontractor who hired us, the van broke down. We found this to be an utter lie the next day, when we were picked up and the other workers said it hadn't been broken down. This was just one example of the subcontractor lying through his teeth to us.

Larry and I had thought we had hit the bottom of the barrel with the strawberries, but we learned that picking snow peas is definitely worse. Not only are you stooped over from about 7am until late afternoon, you're also on your knees the entire time. Worst of all is the pay, which is by weight of produce picked. Larry, Dan, and I each picked about 60kg in a solid day of picking with only a 20-minute lunch and bathroom break. This worked out to be about $48 a piece for a hard day's work. Having to work three times harder to make this ridiculous job pay enough to get by in this country did not seem worth it or even possible. The owner of Maffra's hostel heartily agreed with us that picking veggies was about the worst job out there. It was also noted that we were the only white people in the field, the rest being Asian. One girl even asked us quite frankly, "Why are you here?"

At the end of the day, Larry got a text from a contact from some time ago asking him to be a deckhand on a sailing trip from Sydney to Hobart, Tasmania. Sadly, only one spot was open. He needed to get back to Melbourne immediately to get to Sydney in time to sail. I had no desire to stick around, and came back with him. We got to Melbourne mid-day Friday, and his train left that evening. Dan stuck around, but texted me three hours into the day that he was making about $4 an hour, and was also calling it quits. Dan was a good bloke, and I hope I can catch up to him again at some point, either in Oz or in the States, where he spends half the year as a snowboard instructor.

I am currently at the Timmins' again. I am looking at my options for the next couple weeks, but will most likely make my way north again. About a dozen of the planters are still in Caboolture trimming leaves and putting in a few plants here and there. Picking won't start for another few weeks. The strawberry pimp said I would have a place to stay and stuff to do if I got back up there. I have to head back to Bris eventually anyway, so it may be the best option.

The one bright spot, and a very bright one at that, was the session I played in Friday night. We had to be in the city til evening and I had my fiddle anyway, so I figured it would be worth the effort. The pub was called the Drunken Poet and is owned by a women from County Kilkenny. There were three other fiddles, a guitar, a bodhran, a concertina, and two flutes, all crammed into a corner at the front of the place. They started before I got my fiddle out, but I knew a couple of the tunes in their first set and stepped right in. Because it was so cramped, I wound up sitting on a keg at the edge of the circle. I had learned from the owner that it was indeed an open session, but the sessioneers didn't seem very engaging at first. I didn't know many of their tunes, but I started a few sets, and was nodded at with approval. At the end of the evening, everyone was glad to have had me. They all knew the tunes I played but hadn't heard them in years and were happy to break up their usual sets with refreshing, forgotten tunes. Phones were pulled out, they told me where and when to find Melb's numerous other sessions, and they said they'd keep me in the loop about ceilidhs and house sessions. It was a wonderful feeling to finally get to a session, and a good one at that. Before I left Montana, I had been playing a LOT of music, at least a session a week, with one instance of four sessions in five days, and I hadn't realized how much I missed them. It really makes me wish I could find a way to stay in Melbourne to get to know the session community.

I would like to congratulate all the graduates this spring, especially my classmates and fellow engineers at Montana State. I also need to wish Happy Mothers' Day to all the mothers in my life. My mom, my grandma, my aunt Chris, my aunt Janet, my sister Lic even though she's not a mother, and my sister Court all provide love and support that I couldn't live without. I love you all, and will see you again soon.