Blueberry picking:
This was my first job ever, my first payslip, my first time that i ever earned something. I was in Hastings at the time, wwoofing in a salad farm. At that place I came to wwoof with the hope to earn some extra money for my previous host said that that man would hire some wwoofers to work extra hours and pay them. However, i did not get that paid position. He had enough people to work for him then. I started to try to find work in Hastings, looking at seasonal jobs website. I saw an ad about blueberry picking so I went to that place. It was quite far from where i stayed but i walked there, feeling adventurously excited. When i walked to town trying to figure my way to that place. I met a Chilean couple and talked to them about the picking job i knew about. They were looking for job too so we both went in their car heading to our potential workplace. It's funny how they were telling me in a very intimidating way that I had to pay if the police called and saw me not wearing the seat belt. Maybe they had some bad experience with someone on the back seats...?! Well, i wore my seat belt, of course. We found the place, came in and fill the form. Then we worked right away. When i walked into that blueberry farm, i saw so many pickers, Asian, Pacific Islanders, other "white" people as well... There was one supervisor showing us what to do. I was so overwhelmed and felt quite trapped standing inside a giant net cage... I honestly did not get what i had to do, where to pick blueberry, what to do after i pick them, etc... Totally clueless about the procedure. The couple started to work very fast. They seemed to know what's going on and what to do. They kept moving from one rows to another. I lost them very fast and just randomly picked blueberry from some random row that i saw no people there. Then i met Stewart, a middle-age man from Scotland who later gave me rides to the blueberry farm sice the Chilean couple could not give me a ride no more and they actually estranged me right after that first day. We met again once more time but they didn't talk to me. I didn't bother much thinking about them but Stewart said they seemed rude for not talking to me or asking about how i came to work or anything... (I were surprised how i didn't feel anything like he said)...
I stopped wwoofing and looked for a room in town to stay. I spent one night at a backpacker before i found a room. The backpacker was one of the worst place ever. It kinda helped me really appreciate any other decent and slightly nice ones I stayed on the road later. The landlady i stayed with was having something wrong with her legs. She could not walk properly around the house, always had to lean on something. But she was working part-time as a caretaker for someone even needed more help than her, which was such an admirable thing to me.
Back to my blueberry picking, i started to work there from morning till late evening every day. We all got a trailer and 6 or 8 craters. In each crater, there were boxes. We were all wearing a "necklace" with a box as the pendant so that we could put the blueberry there while picking. We had to follow instructions of supervisors on where to pick. There were numbers on the area, on the poles of every row. We had to move from place to place. It was such a massive blueberry farm and it took quite long to walk around, easy to get lost. Sometimes, i just followed people, not knowing exactly what was being said at all. I normally worked with Steward, each on one side of the blueberry row. We had small talks during work and ate lunch together. It was quite nice to know someone rather than worked alone or with someone you didn't know for there would be some problem if you picked too much and "invaded" blueberries on their side...
It was tiring. A row was long. Some rows are so high, some so low, some so bushy, some so dying... My back was hurt. My head was hurt too if it was a sunny day and i didn't work under some bushy rows. Sometimes, the ground was soggy so it's hard to move the trailer along. It was not a fun job for me, i guess. I didn't feel like to eat blueberries at all for i was busy picking, keeping moving and race with time. I heard lots of singing from other people. They worked with the whole family i believe. Anyway, compared to others, my harvesting was poor. I didn't know why. My hands too small, my speed too slow, my strategy too poor, my time-off too long... Anyway, i was quite happy with what i did.
There was only one time that a girl, who was a supervisor asked me and Stewart to go back a long distance to pick again for she said we missed many blueberries. I felt alright, but then Stewart told me she did that because she wanted more blueberry for her relatives from the other end of the row to pick. That was the last row we had for that day.
That job made me felt like being a robot. We showed our card, which had a number when we came and left the place, no face on it. We were like little ants working hard to collect blueberries. People were weighing our blueberries and recorded how many kilos we made and paid accordingly. I guess many people made heaps of money from that job, not for me. Many people had fun singing, talking, playing on the farm as well but I was busy focusing on my blueberry just to pick a very small amount of blueberry. I just needed to be bigger in size i guess.
I worked there for 2 weeks then i left for another job in the South. If i stayed, my ability would get better i suppose. That job gave me many raw feelings. Feeling of being a laborer for the first time in my life. Feeling of being a tiny faceless part of a giant farm. Feeling of being exhausted, extremely thirsty and hungry but having nothing with me to quench that thirst or hunger but i had to keep going to finish that row...
I bet if i ever worked as a blueberry picker again, i would eat a lot more of blueberries. :)
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