Bowen - Tomato picking

Arriving in Bowen with Leila. After a four-hour drive, we check into a caravan park for the night. After a quick search on Facebook, I have already found a job for me and Flo. We can start picking tomatoes the next day at six o'clock in the morning. We are not particularly motivated, but the prospect of only working for a week helps us get up at five in the morning. We meet some Kiwis and Maoris from New Zealand at the gas station. They take us about ten minutes out of town to the tomato farm. The tomato plants are about one meter and 20 cm tall. They are all picked by hand, but we sit on a seat that is transported by a tractor. There are two long arms attached to the tractor, with arms running diagonally down them. There are two seats down there. So, the tractor drives through the rows and the arms hang between the tomato rows. The pickers sit on the chairs and each person picks all the tomatoes from one side. Since the tractor drives slowly, it determines the speed and it can be quite stressful picking, depending on how many tomatoes are on the bushes. We get 20 cents per kilo. But since we all pick together, that's usually fine. Once the trailer is full, a truck comes with ten bins securely strapped to the loading platform, and the tomatoes are transferred into the bins. The supervisors do this. By the way, there are many of them.

When all ten bins are full, each of us has earned around 20 dollars. So while the tomatoes have to be transported from one trailer to the next, we have to walk back on foot and check the rows we just picked. The work itself is okay. At the beginning, my back hurts a lot and it's difficult to find a good position on the seats. Usually, we need over an hour for one row, and it's exhausting and hot. The biggest problem with all this is that everyone is shouting. Constantly, one of the supervisors or managers yells at you to check your rows or pick faster. Then they tell you that you also have to collect all the tomatoes that have fallen down, and you are reminded that you don't really have a reason to complain since you get to sit all day. And all of this from other backpackers, because they are the foremen. Somehow, it all felt like betrayal. Everyone else is very tired and has been working for over eight consecutive days.

Every morning at five or six o'clock in the morning, we hear the kookaburra laughing. And then there are the rainbow lorikeets, small birds that look like little colorful parrots. Every evening, there is a lot of noise as they try to find their partners, because they all sleep together in the same tree, always in pairs.

After the first day, our hands are green and my legs are covered in bruises. We bravely continue to pick all the tomatoes. As soon as a tomato has a little shine or even just a little bit of red/yellow color, we are supposed to pick it. That explains why all the tomatoes just don't taste good, they are harvested too early. After five days, we get a day off. We spend the day with a friend, grilling, eating tiramisu and chips. Then the next morning at five o'clock, we just stay in bed. I have no problem doing hard work or doing what no one else wants to do, but I think it's not too much to ask to be treated nicely, and it's about the little things like saying "good morning" or having some understanding if you didn't catch every tomato.