Besen Besen seis gewesen

After renting a room in an apartment in Christchurch, we spend the next few days signing up with various agencies. After 2-3 days, we have success and are matched with a job. It is a construction site and we wonder what as unskilled workers we will be doing. After the briefing, it becomes clear that we are to keep the construction site as clean as possible, so we are armed with brooms. It sounds just as exciting as it is. We sweep all day long and occasionally dispose of plasterboard, wood, and metal.

The construction site is the new Ministry of Justice, which was supposed to be completed by Christmas and is now $500 million over budget. Over 1000 workers are working on the site, 60% of whom are from the Philippines. Claudi is one of the 1% of women working on the construction site and she is often approached by the friendly Filipinos and sometimes just stared at strangely. Our work group consists of both Kiwis and Argentines who also came to NZ as backpackers. We are really surprised that we don't meet any other Germans, but we shouldn't be disappointed for long.

So we spend 49 hours per week for the next 3 months and slowly we get used to the construction site and its work. We see why the schedule is not being met. When it rains, water runs from top to bottom, water pipes break, and so dozens of rooms need to have their plasterboard replaced, it rains into finished rooms and the carpet needs to be replaced because the glue no longer holds. Paint is also being applied in finished rooms and the carpet is not covered. The biggest problem is that the building was not finished being designed before construction began.

On weekends, we spend a lot of time with our 2 Russian roommates Marina and Dimitri, who came to Christchurch to study. Together we explore the local nightlife or watch movies. Our third roommate, Mohammed, also known as Mo, occasionally joins us.