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M is for Motekye
Aug. 13th, 2008
07:32 pm - Grand Finale
I think my travels are over this year. We're back in Vancouver for the foreseeable future. I've been many places, met tons of people, been to hell and back and had an awesome time. Through all of it I've learned that traveling is the bomb, but what's even better is having a place to come home to. It took about 60 seconds to get my old job back and I've already made plans to get an apartment for September 1st.
To recap: we went to Nelson, met an awesome band named Blame the Name from Quebec, some wicked kids from Saskatchewan, got stuck in Salmo for 2 days waiting for our friends. We met an awesome rottweiler on the side of the highway and nicknamed him 'Big Rig' after his affinity for chasing 18-wheelers, until the owner finally came to find him a day later.
We bought Nate's ticket in Nelson and I was going to sneak in. When we arrived at the start of the 6km walk up the ranch property to the site there were cars lined up the whole way and down th highway as far as I could see. So instead of sneak in, I walked the line sparing for change to buy a ticket off a scalper; I danced and sang to entertain the cars and flew a sign. People were so impressed by what I was trying to do that I got toonies and fivers. By the end of the line I had $200, then security kicked me out.
The line had advanced since then and the beginning was past the first checkpoint—which I could no longer cross. At the bottom of the line, there was no getting the cars to stop, I just sat with my sign yelling at every car with an open window "Spare ticket you can sell me?! Spare ticket?!" I made a couple extra bucks, but not much. Things were looking grim.
Then a car stopped for me. "Yes, we do have a spare ticket..."
$200-something bucks and a free ticket. Happy Shambhala.
Aug. 1st, 2008
11:07 am
We stayed at the wharf for three nights and had big bonfires until the cops busted us. Now we gotta camp out of town until the third. It's just two more nights anyway.
Then we get to go to Salmo! We get to meet up with the Vancouver kids and go to Shambhala! We haven't really planned out what happens after that. Maybe more fruit picking, maybe going out East, who knows. It's the first day of August and it definitely feels like the start of a new month.
I'm going to keep this short. There's free food waiting at the top of the hill and we're due at the YERC at 1:00 to get a job today. After that, we're going to go check out the waterfall at the other end of town.
Until next time.
Jul. 30th, 2008
12:16 pm
We worked our last day thinning apples and collected our combined $325 for our last week of work. Now, we're in Nelson!
The fellow who took us here dropped us off just outside of town, where we hiked up a hill to make camp near a fenced-off waterfall. Man was that something. We hopped the fence to see it, it's like the water cut a deep gorge with trees and grass on either side. I charged my phone with my windup for a few minutes to get a picture. It was amazing. Standing next to a tree I could look down the gorge 50 feet to certain death.
We pitched our tent on a slope again. It was stupid and now our tents broken. The cheapest tent here is twice the size and cost of our old one. We haven't bought it yet.
We got dinner at the Salvation Army drop-in center and hiked past the bridge to the old wharf where we slept. What a piece of work. The thing's damn near a hundred years old. It provided shelter, but portions of the wood floor were rotted completely through. All the guard-rails are gone and the only way to get to it is a long, rusted steel catwalk, high over the shore with no guard-rail.
The rain came down mercilessly on the top of the wharf that night, us and the three punks we met in Nelson were very glad we decided to camp there.
Jul. 23rd, 2008
02:10 pm
So we made camp on Sukhi's orchard the night before we would start work. He pointed down a dirt road dividing two blocks of fruit trees on his orchard and told us to pitch our tent wherever. There was a road just off of that with rows of trees on either side, each row had a tent pitched between the trees with a few personal belongings of the owners strewn around—5 other tents in total. This is the camp-site we would come to know as "the lane".
We met a few of our fellow pickers who were still awake and figured out what this place was about. It was very close-knit, everyone here hung out together and got drunk. The first people we met were Felix from Montreal and Sam from Chicago, Illinois—the first picker here we've met who wasn't from Quebec. We picked a spot just after an empty row that the tractor drove down and pitched our tents, ready for work the next day.
We didn't know what to expect, we've never picked fruit before in our lives, but we got the hang of it pretty fast. On my first day, I brought in 17 ten-lb pails, the kids from Quebec each brought in 30 and then called it a day. After our first day of work, we got to know the other pickers here. Jean-Michelle from outside of Quebec City, Emanuel from somewhere else in Quebec and Nayalee from Mexico, I think. Over the course of the two weeks we were there we worked together, we drank together, overcame the language and culture barriers and became good friends.
Over time, I began to notice improvement in the speed and ease of my picking. I would be able to do 20 pails a day before the season ended, Nate went from 9 on her first day to the mid-teens. We quickly learned just what it meant to be a "migrant farm worker". We made $2.50 per pail which for most of us worked out to be less than minimum wage, the toilette was an atrocious porta-potty, and every time I opened the door I was accosted by a rank odor and a horde of flies. It was emptied only once the entire time we were there, and only after two days of hassling Sukhi.
The camp turned into a dump of empty bottles, food wrappers and other garbage, there was no hygene here, our baths were in an irrigation canal, a ten minute hike up the road. We ate cheap cans of pasta and beans from super-value cooked over a fire, or when we could afford propane, Sam's stove. Every night, we drank wine and talked under the stars, then long after the sun had set, retired to our tents in a stupor, only to be woken up at dawn by a cowbell. It was time to work again.
"You pick the cherries now!"
Life was not completely simple, there was drama between the members of our faction from the beginning. Gillian and Nate's bickering and general bad behaviour caused a host of problems that eventually led to Gillian leaving for Vancouver. Chelsea joined us a few days before that and from day one, her and Sam were at each-other's throats. I think the only people in the camp that did not have problems with someone were the Frenchies.
Nearing the end of the cherry picking, our camp was moved to the back of a cherry block so th4e block we were in could be sprayed with pesticide. We aranged our tents in a circle between two wide rows of trees,the stove and fire-pit in the center. This camp would be called the circle. By this time, we had all figured out this whole cherry picking thing, I was making 20 pails a day and on the last day of picking, managed to bring in a personal record of 27 pails.
Almost every day we would walk or hitch-hike into town to make use of the ammenities provided here for us. There's the beach where over the course of a week, I have gone from a thrashing emu to an avid swimmer. I can float, swim out into deep water and dive down and swim around underwater. There's also the park where everyone hangs out. It's always full of pickers getting drunk. And of course there's also this library where I'm making this post.
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Cherry picking is over now, first Emanuel and Nayalee left to go east to Creston for their contract, Then Felix left for Naramata to follow the "Cherry Road"—every town along the way begins their cherry season at a different time. Finally Jean-Michelle left to go back home to Quebec. It feels like the end of something.
The scene in this town has changed. All the french cherry pickers have been replaced by spanish fruit pickers and farm workers. We're picking peaches on the same orchard, but the work is crappy and there's not enough of it. It's pouring rain and everything is wet and miserable, the members of our camp are always arguing. Me and Nate will probably be leaving Oliver soon. Maybe Naramata, maybe summerland. We don't know yet. I'll know by tomorrow...
Jul. 16th, 2008
03:12 pm - Dehumanizing String of Bullshit.
So we got work! A while ago now, actually. forgot to update because it's been busy.
So after waking up on a dog beach in a strange and unfamiliar town—it's happened more than once—we packed up camp as not to bother the elderly and proceeded back into Oliver, the weight of our bags crushing our souls. The first order of business was to explore the town and find some work. After the Orchard Association did not help very much, we rolled down to WorkZone and after a little bullshit, got set up with a job for the next day.
We went there and the lady said her name wasn't Joe. We couldn't phone the number back and the address seemed bogus. This would be the beginning of a very dehumanizing string of bullshit.
After the first orchard job didn't pull through, an orchard owner offered to let us camp on his property. The only tihng was that he kept asking our friend Razan if she wanted to get drunk with him. The fellow was a creeper. Well, maybe this is what all orchard owners act like, just stick up to him. Aside from that he was very nice and let us stay on his orchard for a couple days with a promise of work later. We stayed there for about 5 days while we tried to get work in the town.
We had jobs lined up each of those days but something always went afoul. The first one we went to, we didn't realize that you have to show up extra early to these things. We got to the orchard around 8 and the lady said no work. After that, we make a phone call and maybe get work starting a few days later, also a few days after that at the Suki guy's orchard we're staying at. Then we make a mistake. Suki kept telling us different days everytime we asked. At first it was thursday, then it was friday—which makes sense because there was a freak storm here on the night before. The cherries might be damaged. Then Suki says maybe saturday instead of friday. So we get work lined up for friday somewhere else. The other place is a two hour walk to the other part of town.
It was a gruelingly long walk. A hike/bike trail that follows a forested area along the Okanagan river for about 10km from each side of town. The trail darts in and out of native land and is peppered with the stern and ever-present "tent with cross through it thingie" signs. Spooky. The river was also mostly closed off with a fence. There would be footbridges along the river and below them, underwater wheir's posted with warning signs like "THE DROWNING MACHINE" and black signs with skull and crossbones on them.
They really did not want people swimming in this river.
We camped in a completely sketch location along the river in what could have been native band land, employing full camoflauge and finding a somewhat secluded spot.
We woke up at 8. 3 hours late. We're irresponsible and stupid.
So we decide to go get orchard certified. Never did that either.
We did go back to Suki's orchard for Saturday work, and when we got there the place had been cleaned out. While we were 3km away walking into town, another group of pickers cleaned him out.
That's about when we realized that we would have to be a lot more assertive about this picking business. We decided, then and there, that we would show up at his house at 9-o-clock at night to get work. Turns out, it wasn't Suki who lived there after all. It was Sukhi. We got to stay at his orchard for the night and started picking the next day...
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