After taking Pierre to the airport, we started looking for work more actively. We spent two more weeks in Darwin, one of which we rented a small apartment.
Finding work turned out to be not particularly easy. We spent several days in the city, visiting various employment agencies and dropping off our resumes at restaurants and hotels.
Our time in Darwin was intense and contrasting. On one hand, it was wonderful. We lived in the city center, which consists of only one street. Everything is within walking distance. We randomly ran into a Japanese guy from our first backpacker hostel, Little Devil, on the street. He was with two others whom we also knew. We went to the beach and visited the Sunset Market together. It felt like meeting good friends in a distant place. In the next few days, we also met half of our walnut team again. We enjoyed spending time together, going out for drinks in bars at night, and enduring terrible music in nightclubs. I felt very free and at the same time very restricted.
On the other hand, Darwin is full of people and I've never seen so many Aboriginals in any other city. I've thought for a long time about how best to describe this situation. I've always been a very sensitive person when it comes to beggars, for example. I can't look them in the eye and I feel bad because I have so much and they have so little. Then there's the question of whether I should give them money. In the end, they will probably just drink it away, but do I have the right to judge? Do I have the right to give them money and tell them how to spend it? We've given a lot of money to Indigenous people and we've also met some of them working at liquor stores. We've experienced audacity like: 'Got a dollar?' and when you take out your wallet: 'Or two? ... five? ... but this kebab costs ten?'. We got into a fight on the street at night because we protected an old Indigenous man from a young Australian guy, who also probably lives on the street and, from what it sounds like, didn't even start the fight. And on another night, we had long, agonizing discussions with other backpackers who claim that all Aboriginals receive more money than they do. I've perceived a lot of pain in Darwin. The city and the people have done me so much good, and some have shown a lot of humanity, but on the other hand, it is simply inhumane how they treat the mothers and fathers of this land. The police are always only after the Aboriginals, and everyone else treats them with disrespect and great disdain. Often, I've thought that society treats animals better than some other people.
After two weeks, I was lucky to find work outside of Darwin. A small mango farm hired me as a packer. The mango farm belongs to a Chinese family. An old couple (74 and 76 years old) and their son, who is around 40 years old, own it. They still work full-time and run the farm on their own. They are very profit-driven and have little time for a 'Good morning' or anything similar. After a few days, Flo is also allowed to come to the farm and work. The packing itself is not particularly strenuous. Sometimes it's very fast, but mostly I feel bored. We have a two-hour break at noon because Mammie (French grandmother) wants to go home to cook and eat. So the days are very long, but in the end, you haven't done much work. We only live with French people on the farm, which I'm not thrilled about, but I'm getting by. Most of them pick mangoes, which turns out to be quite spectacular. When mangoes are removed from the tree, they squirt a liquid from the stem that is caustic. So there is a specific picking technique that avoids the pickers coming into contact with it. They also wear long pants, a long shirt, some wear ski goggles and face masks. Once the fruit is removed from the tree, it is washed immediately by a machine, and before they are packed, they are washed again. If you still get this liquid on your skin and have an allergic reaction, thousands of itchy red spots spread all over your body. The only thing you can do is treat it with cream, wait, and ideally, never work with mangoes again.
After two weeks, we both decide that we don't really want to work here and leave more or less abruptly. Within two hours, we made the decision, packed up, and left Charles Darwin.
We plan to cross Australia to work in Leeton for SunRice.
