The sun is shining and the breeze seems to have dropped a little since earlier this morning. That will please Chris and his co-workers in the field. I am back from my walk, an abbreviated one hour, as per yesterday. I have a lot of book work to deal with this afternoon.
Yesterday brought a couple of surprises. When I got down to the “main” road, before setting off up “my” road, I found that the grader had been through, and the water cart was keeping the centre irrigated. I am wondering whether the woman at the Talwood store did in fact have a word in the ear of the road construction crew, as I had suggested, and ask them to just pop over the border and tidy up the kilometre to Koramba Cotton’s gate? If so, we will forever be in her debt!
This morning the water cart driver was passing doing his thing when I came back out on to the main road. I waved and gave him a thumbs up signal. Hopefully he understood what I was trying to convey.
The second surprise was one of those amazing co-incidences that occur in life. Late in the afternoon, a ute and fifth wheeler pulled in to the camp and set up beside our van. Another usurper, I muttered. I greeted them briefly as I moved our grey water hose away from their site, and then left them to set up.
Lynette came over after a little while, introduced herself properly and gave a brief overview of who and what they were. ”So where are you from”, I asked, having detected what I thought to be a non-Aussie accent.
“Whangarei”, she said.
Now my deafness does get things mixed up sometimes, so I said, “Pardon, where?”
She repeated the same, and I said, “So do we come from there.”
She then added, “Onerahi”.
Now how can it be after all these months of having encountered no other Kiwis, except for those we did when we first arrived in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast, even though everyone said, “There are so many Kiwis traveling – you will meet them everywhere”, that we should meet not only fellow Kiwis, but those who lived just a kilometre from us! (Now if Chris was editing this, he would have me correct the fact that it is I who am the Kiwi, not him. He is proudly an Australian, returning home after years in exile.)
Lynette and her partner, Mike, are employed by Labour Solutions, as is Chris. They were promised six weeks of work here, however only a further week on the harvest doing the same as Chris. After that they believe they will be involved in the mulching and replanting. This morning, they headed off in their very clean Labour Solutions fluoro vests with Chris to the gate. I do wonder how Lynette will find the work, however she is younger, fitter and probably more motivated than I.
Chris arrived home to find another camper in our lot, and to tell me that he had broken the module maker. On investigation, it turns out that the breakage has happened to others, and he was unlucky enough to be the person operating the machine when it fell apart. No doubt there was someone working away until the wee hours this morning, patching the thirty year old machine with sellotape and wire so that it will function until the end of the harvest.
This morning, on my return I discovered the rapper-boys dismantling their tent and they are now sitting in their car listening to their kind of music waiting for…. maybe the older person, who is apparently very smelly. I don’t know where the younger two were yesterday. They were conspicuous by their absence, as has been my Dog.
I also saw that one of the water tanks at the end of the men’s camp had water pouring out the top at an alarming rate. I went back and called to Diego who was at the kitchen window. He said something unintelligible, so I went in through the storeroom to speak to him. Boxes of food were laying all around the floor. Diego was visibly upset; it seems that the coolroom fridge had broken down, he had $3,500 worth of groceries purchased yesterday, needing refrigeration. The engineer had come to take a part and fix it, then was called away by the mechanic, now hours ago. And what was he to do? His arms were flailing around in true Latino style, his English broken and highly peppered with the F-word.
I told him about the water tank and so he came with me to see, but lumbered into the flood of water getting his chef’s pants soaked and his rubber clogs submerged. Again, the F-word featured greatly. Alas I am not close enough to him to explain that this is not correct language to use in front of “ladies” and ask him if he would use such language in front of his mother or his grandmother? Here in this camp, I am learning to let it float over the top of my head. Some may say this is letting my standards slip; perhaps, however it is not licence for my own children to use it in my presence, nor I to start as some of my peers seem to have done with great gusto in this modern day and age.
Anyway, enough! Diego leaped about trying to reach the pipe tipped on its edge at the top. I offered my walking pole, which he took, poked the pipe with this and became even wetter. He said he would tell Daryl. I said, “Good idea. Sorry to make your day even worse”.
He assured me that I had not, I probably could not, and disappeared back in to his kitchen muttering and cursing.
The cicadas have struck up a loud chorus, something I have not heard or possibly noticed for a while. Perhaps too I am becoming immune to the wonders of this land. I do hope not; surely that is not possible.
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