jan 22, 2009. thursday.
i’m still working in the vineyard but from a different contractor. sussie’s job has been mostly contract and earning money in contract work, apparently, is only possible for people adept at plucking leaves as if they have 2 extra pairs of hands. i’m working for john now, who heavily expressed he is not giving contract work, and prefer hourly rate jobs of $10 (after tax). helen, kayo (of japan), and myself worked for him last monday, and was soon followed by several people from the hostel, yoko (’worked with her before for sussie), tim (of germany), leonnie (of germany), sam (a kiwi), and my roommate conrad (of germany as well). leonnie drives a car, so some of us gets to work with her,
all vineyard and farms i’ve had work are a bit far from the hostel that owning transpo is definitely a big help, but luckily i always ended up getting ride from someone else. for now, we are using a car left by morgan, who was our roommate a few days ago, conrad drives. the vineyard we are working for at the moment is around 15 kms from our hostel.
i forgot to mention that i had a 1-day work in waipukurao (about 50 kms south of hastings) while i was still working for sussie. it is a cabbage plantation and work is weeding. unlike weeding onions, cabbage doesn’t smell, and more importantly, we use a special rake to do the job, so the task was a bit relaxed that we don’t have to do much bending, but still the sun was always present to torment.
so work with john started last monday, which was in a vineyard. leaf plucking and grapes thinning (just removing small fruits), and i’m getting familiar with the tasks. tuesday was the same work, and the good thing about this is we get hourly rate. on my first day, i didn’t even finish a single row! and that is the case for most of us since it’s hourly. and we don’t necessarily be in a hurry. last wednesday and today, we moved to a different vineyard, and john said it’s going to be on contract! so we were a bit surprised as he said he doesn’t do any contracts! we had no choice so we just tried anyway.
today’s work in the vineyard is a change. i’ve done mostly plucking and grape thinning before, also some clippings of the net to keep birds off the fruits. i’ve done a total 1,183 meters of grapes rows clipping in a day (yesterday), and a meter is paid at a rate of 10 cents giving $118 BEFORE taxes. this morning while doing my 4th or 5th row of net clipping, our supervisor asked if i want to try a trolley job which could probably give more money. i said i’ll give it a try. so before noon i worked with trolley. the task is to place the nets along the great length of vine rows (the very same nets we clip). first, i need to find the net roll among a heap of rolls and map it with the correct lane number. grape lanes are of varying length and so they must match with the net’s length. a single roll could be heavy, especially when i’ve done the job for a while already that i’m so tired. i have to lift a roll and fixed it in a special trolley more like a spindle, the nets are spun around a long wood, and fitting this in the trolley could be troublesome like when the wood is not long enough to catch the lock (it will fall off when rolled) or when the spring is so tight you can’t fit in the roll easily. then, tie a knot in one end of a lane and roll all the way down to the other end and going back to the other side. sometimes, the nets are so mudddled (they appeared to have been used before) and it’s very annoying to untie the tangles. at the end of the day, i ran, walked, and jogged a total of 4,280 meters in length of vineyards all lugging a heavy trolley with rolls of net. this pays for a pity 3 cents a meter. to save you from calculating, i earned $128.4, which is more or less 3531 pesos. doing the rolling is a lot more tiring than clipping and a lot less boring, but really have to be careful as tim once dropped a roll on his feet and it was so bad that he skipped work for a day and now just back to the dullness of clipping.
we’ll try to be a bit early tomorrow (we want to have a longer, like an hour lunch + siesta perhaps), and leave here half past 6, so ‘will have to end this post now. sweet as!
jan 23, 2009. friday.
realizing rolling is extremely tiring, i finished 3 rows of rolling nets and then joined the others with clipping. we were home a bit early today as there were not much nets to clip anymore, and it was horribly hot. sometimes, i feel that it gets even hotter than summer back home. though a good thing to note is that it’s not much humid so there’s no sticky feeling at all. now, i try to apply as much sunscreen as a can and it’s almost empty so have to buy a new one. the coppertone tube i’m using is still from a discounted shop in st paul last year, hehe.
since it’s a bit early for dinner when we got home (as most of the time we’re in a rush cooking, dinner, plus having a shower after work daily), tim, conrad, helen, and myself went for a quick cold dip in a waterfalls around the neighboring town, maraetorara?. it’s about 40 minutes away and using morgan’s car, we got there just in time before the sun gets down. the water was so cold!! a lot more cold than waterfalls i’ve been to at home (taytay and pagsanjan). it’s icy cold that i was hesitant in dipping at first! but then, it was so a good chance to miss swimming that i even jumped from the top of the falls (it wasn’t that high), and another jump in swinging-rope style! the only not so good thing that happened is that conrad’s camera tried the water as well. 
we’re not sure if it’s broken, he hasn’t turned it on yet and better to wait for a few days to dry it.
jan 24, 2009. saturday.
i just came back from the vineyard as it seems there’s not enough lanes to do the clipping on the other blocks as well. i did a total of 4 medium-distance lanes, and we decided to go home. before leaving, sam and leonie were offered by the supervisor if we want to work directly for them and not through john. john took us originally in this vineyard, and the thing with working for john is that he is a contractor, and there’s always rumors around about contractors being dodgy that some people don’t get paid for their work. we don’t know anyone who worked for john and has been paid. also, he might go and take us to a different place next week, different work, and might be different wage, so we thought that having a more stable job is better for all of us.
