Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, with plenty of wonderful gifts, food, and friends/family. I had all that as well, albeit in a more unorthodox fashion.
First, though, I feel I should describe our time spent as migrant workers on banana plantations. We wake up at 4:45am each morning, silently getting dressed in our work clothes (filthy shorts, filthier shirt, baseball caps, long black socks, tall black rubber boots, and about a gallon of sunscreen), and catching our rides at 5:45. Shana worked at a different plantation than Julia and I did, and her ride was an actual legitimate bus. My transport was a white utility vehicle with benches nailed in the back for all 10 of us to cram into (only Julia and I spoke English natively.) A silent 30 minute ride ensues. Once there, we are assigned to do any number of things. Julia was on the stringing team, which meant she tied trees together with twine for 8 hours. I was on the irrigation team, which meant I walked around and fixed sprinklers all day. I also made a brief foray into the leafing team, which consisted of me holding a scythe (a la the Grim Reaper) and cutting leaves off banana trees. It's kind of fun, actually, except that it gets really hot, and also myriad spiders/snakes/frogs (all poisonous, I hear) live in the grasses. The only time Julia and I spent together was when we did a banana-sorting shift in the packing shed. Giant bananas come down a conveyer belt filled with water, and either Julia or I break them apart and the other inspects them and picks out the bad ones. I hate it. It's really boring, and breaking banana bunches apart is pretty difficult, surprisingly. I may or may not have carpal tunnel and new spider veins pop up every 10 minutes or so. Our day ends at 3:10, when we pile back into the truck. A silent 30 minute ride, smellier than before, ensues.
We count ourselves lucky, though, because the Banana Barracks owner has taken an extraordinary liking to us and got us jobs within 24 hours and also letting us bartend in exchange for free accomadation. So we are in high spirits, I'd say, both because of our good fortune and also a really nice Christmas. We got a teeny tree, put up some lights in our shanty, and bought each other cheap little presents (Julia got me a toothbrush, for example, and I got Shana a new loofa). The whole hostel all got together for a Christmas buffet lunch, and it was really neat to just be sitting around with people from dozens of different countries. Also we accidentally got pretty drunk, which was weird and somehow seemed wrong on the birth of Our Lord. Nevertheless we pushed on, going to bed at 6am and waking up at 8am to go to Dunk Island and drink more there-- it was really fun. I drunk-dialed Mom (sorry).
We're leaving Tully on Monday, headed for Cairns for New Years Eve (we'll be in 2009 16 hours ahead of you, weird.) Then who knows. Sorry I haven't been in touch with anybody, but there is only one computer for about 100 of us. Anyway, thanks for the Christmas emails/updates, and have a great New Years!
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