-Chapter 16- Work-Mac, Powen, and the Kiwis

On Thursday, we made our second attempt at work. This time, we were only 5 minutes early. Luckily, the boss was already there, so we drove to the Kiwi farm and parked behind him. He introduced himself as "Mac". He was the manager and Powen's boss, but there was also a "Boss" named Marti that they always talked about and he introduced himself to us after a week. ("I am the Boss. Mac works for me, but sometimes I do the work. Ha ha"). Those were basically the only people involved with this farm. Every few days, two Indians who were probably Powen's friends would come to help. (One of them would get really excited and sing along loudly when he heard music, and the other always wore a bag over his head with only two holes for the eyes (?!)). They would only come for a few hours, usually on the weekends when Mac wasn't there.

On our first day, Mac spent half an hour explaining our very demanding work: very, very slowly creeping through the rows, looking up all the time, and making one kiwi bud out of three. It was a bit like being in school. He emphasized that we should be "nice" and "gentle" to the buds, and treat them like "little babies". Mac was very passionate about his work on the farm. He later told us that he had actually learned a different job, but now he worked on this kiwi farm because it made him happy. He also warned us about the toilet on the kiwi farm, a shed that had an outhouse inside. (I tried to use it once, but when I opened the toilet seat, a huge spider crawled out).

At 8:20 ("Work starts at eight"), Powen finally arrived, put on his rubber boots, and slowly shuffled over to Mac and us. Mac proudly introduced him to us as a "hard worker" (Powen shuffled his feet silently), and said that they would work together as a team. Then he let us do our work while we wondered the whole time where the other workers were. When Celina asked him during our first meeting, Powen vaguely pointed to the back corner of the kiwi farm and said that there were of course other people working there.

In New Zealand, people greet each other with "How are you?", which we found unusual at first. Even though it's just a polite phrase, I'm too shy (and probably too German) to ask strangers how they are. So on the second morning, Powen greeted us with "Good Morning! How are you?", and we were completely caught off guard and replied "good". In the mornings after that, he always said, "How are you? Good?" Our contract was supposed to be given to us the next day, but since we hadn't received our IRD (tax number) yet, Powen told us to let him know when we have it. Even though we assured him and it was impossible for us to speed up the process, he asked us every day "mjhf hjgjh IRD?", and for 7 days we could only say "uh... no" repeatedly with increasing guilt.

After that, nothing really happened. We stood for 9 hours every day. Row after row, day after day, until we completed the whole farm with this task. Although we could listen to music and talk to each other, the work was still so boring that each day felt like two. Mac would come by occasionally to chat with us or tell us something about the farm, and Powen would check our work a few times a day. We had three breaks. Two 15-minute breaks at 10 am and 3 pm, and our lunch break at 12:30 pm. In the first two weeks, we had three to four days off. Either because it was raining, once because of a holiday, or twice because we were so tired that we took the day off ourselves. The only event was when it suddenly started raining heavily while we were working. Everyone had to hide in their cars, and when we enthusiastically went back to the kiwis and started working, Powen followed us and shouted something that we only understood as "hrmpf" because he said it so fast. Then he pulled down the gate above us so that it rained on our heads and told us it was too wet.

After a week, when Powen's tolerance was probably also reached, we received our IRD. We could finally fill out our employment contract.

-> To be continued