My glee is waning a bit. Find myself dragging out of bed and
pulling on work clothes isn’t nearly as adventuresome as before. At times I
look longingly at my cute shirts, skirts and makeup that I haven’t touched
since I arrived. Ah well, there will be more days, weeks, years to use them.
Have not left the house for a week and I look forward to the deliveries
tomorrow to get a chance to bop into town.
Washing my grungy socks everyday, panties and my sweaty hat.
Can’t face a day with stiff muddy socks. If I forget my clothes outside on the
line overnight, I have to put them on wet since they collect the moisture from
the air. Still washing by hand but will mingle my clothes with Ian’s tomorrow.
Feel less guilty using the washer when it is for two of us. Don’t have that
many clothes to wash all at once.
The dishes are all washed by hand in cold water. Still have
yet to fix the pipe that is attached to the hot water tank. The shower is
warmish. I don’t mind when the sun is out and it’s dry but when it was raining
and overcast...wah!
Blisters and cuts are healing. Much more savvy with my knife
and always remembering to put on my gloves before heading up to the fields. My
hat and water bottle were my companions this morning. Weeded and tore all of
the “old and ugly” leaves from the kale. Bagged all of the remnants for the
chickens. As galinhas are having a fiesta this afternoon. Getting ready for
lunch. Pots bubbling on the wood stove and I set the table. Plunk everything
down in the middle and hands snatch the plates and utensils to pile food from
the wood stove. Have a bit of time to prepare this Blog before the meal is
ready.
The novella is interesting to be a part of-everyone sits and
blabs during the drama and I can catch the gist of it between the dialog and tv
show. It gets integrated into the meal conversations…who is going to be killed,
will the family pay the ransom, who is sleeping with whom, etc.
Yesterday we were so busy getting all of the boxes ready to
deliver to the city. Up and down the hillside to collect kale, eggplant, papaya
and cherry tomatoes. Made sure to sing out loud to myself so the snakes would
slither away.
Delivery day was insane. Had to separate the boxes for each
client, create receipts, run up and down the hillside to collect more produce,
sticker the egg cartons, staple a scrap of paper to each box so we would
remember what was missing from the box. The manioc is frozen and needed to be
kept in a cooler. The next time we will also have a cooler for the cheese and
requeijao (which is much like whipped cream cheese) since it took us so long to
complete the deliveries.
I got in the car with Dario, lists in hand. I double-checked
the math as we bumped along the dirt road. Had one tablet with carbon copied
receipts (little did I know the carbon was rubbing off on my white shorts!) one
with a list of client-some of which had addresses, nearly none of them had a
phone number) and my list of things to add to the boxes once we arrived at the
destination.
If it were up to me…which of course, it isn’t…I would have
all of the boxes organized in the car going from farthest to closest. We picked
up a box of lettuce, huge beautiful heads bursting with water and sprigs of
broccoli and hard green heads of cabbage. The other farmer brought it to us and
we had to scramble to find enough room in the already disorganized car. Oh boy!
I felt strangled by the scent of dirt though I had just showered before lunch. Dirt
under my fingernails gave me away, a band of sweat didn’t hide the fact that I
work on a farm. Usually I sat in the car while Dario made the delivery and
collected the money.
Was horrified to look down at my hands, dirt crammed in my
nails, soil stripes across my palm, my hair dried weird and I immediately had
to laugh at myself. I represent the farm and no one cares how I look, I’m sure.
The first client didn’t answer the door (later we discovered
her doorbell is out of order!) second stop Dario came back from the grey
building without the box (it was noted as a red building, 4th floor
and the apartment number but he chose to ignore those details.) Told me it was
the wrong place but he left the box anyway. The receipt consists of the
client’s first name, what they ordered and the prices.
We drove around for four hours, back and forth, looking for
client’s addresses, squinting for the street signs in the rapidly approaching
darkness and making sure, when we did encounter the client, that the box
contained everything it was should have. I was starving. When we pulled alongside
the bakery, I was drooling for a pao de queijo (delicious bread roll with
cheese inside.) I refrained, thinking (wrongly) that dinner would be ready on
the table when we arrived at the house. It was another hour before I had a
plate of spaghetti with eggplant in the sauce. Whew!
On the overcast day it was nice to have some cloud coverage
in the fields. It was hot and yet I wasn’t dripping sweat-nothing worse than
having sun block mixed with sweat dribbling down my face. I end up wiping my
face off with my t-shirt or glove then have smears across my face. Don’t dare
sit next to anyone at lunch unless I have showered off.
Made twenty packets of palmito pieces, 15 sacks of 500 kg,
25 of 700 kg. First we cut the palm tree down then strip the casing. The bottom
is cut off and we soak it in a mild bleach water solution, rinse, weigh, then air
dry then bag, seal and label each one. So labor intensive but it will generate R$450
($225US) we worked all afternoon on that project. Dario will deliver it to a
suburb of Sao Paulo,
driving a total of 6 hours, give-or- take. Yes, the life of a farmer isn’t
easy!
Had tea and fresh cookies made by Jolinha (Ana’s mom!) and
we gobbled them down, one-by-one. Ah, satisfied my sweet tooth…it is Friday!
No comments:
Post a Comment