More Drama than Neighbours and Home and Away
Helloo peeps!
I’ll try to keep this one short, as I realise that some of you only get a half hour lunch break in which to read my blogs!
Since we ran out of work up at the Oolloo farm with the baby Mango trees, our good friend Jeff stepped in to introduce us to some more local farmers so that we could find some more work. Although we’ve been here in Dimbulah since 3rd November 2005 and that’s quite a long time to spend in one place when we have the whole of Australia to visit, since we decided to go to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock with Sven and Marie, we agreed to stay a little while longer as they need to earn some more spendies to get some repairs done on their van (unless we wanna go breaking down in the middle of nowhere I-don’t-think-so!). As it is, we’ve managed to save quite a bit of cash over the last couple of months but every penny counts and the more the better so Jeff hooked us up with some work on another mango farm. This time with full size trees and actual mangoes!
Last Saturday we went out to Mutchilba which is a tiny little place between here and Mareeba, it’s even smaller than Dimbulah but with lots of farms and only about 10 minutes drive away from the caravan park. We met Aldo and Carmel De’Zen and their son Luigi, an Italian family in case you hadn’t guessed and they set us on at their Mango farm, picking and packing the fruit. As luck would have it the farm next door also had work for Sven and Marie and we all started work on Monday last week at 6am! The first day we found out that they work from 6am til 6pm everyday. They have a tea break or ‘smoko’ as it’s known out here at 8am and at 3pm with an hour and a half for lunch from12-1.30pm each day. A long 12 hour day and you might think it’s not so bad with so many breaks but in reality, it meant we were at work for all the daylight hours in the day and in the hottest part from 12-1.30pm, while the family scuttles off to their nice air conditioned house for a big cooked dinner and a snooze, we have to sit in the boiling heat in our little van with a couple of ham sandwiches.
Out in the field we weren’t so much ‘picking’ the fruit as what’s called ‘de-sapping’. They have a motorised machine with a trampoline and a conveyor belt that moves alongside all the trees. Aldo, the boss, stands on a platform above the trampoline and picks the fruit from the top of the tree while a group of pickers with clippers on long poles pick everything else from underneath. Craig had to stand on the back of the machine at the end of the conveyor belt and pick out any mangoes that came through with a bit of stem still attached, pull off the stem and throw them back into the machine for rinsing. I had to take fruit from the pickers and remove the stems from as many as I could before throwing them onto the machine. They casually informed us that when you break the stems from the fruit, the sap that spurts out (“like a cat pissing” is the phrase they use, sorry nan) can burn you so be careful. It didn’t take long for us to realise just how badly the stuff burns, but the bosses didn’t take much time to explain to us how to do it properly and avoid getting burned. And when Aldo is flinging mangoes left right and centre from the top of his platform, me and Craig were getting sprayed all over with the stuff. After only one day we both looked like we’d been in a terrible accident. There were spray burns on our faces and hands, necks, arms, legs – anywhere with uncovered flesh.
On the second day we only had to go picking until 10am and then spent the rest of the day packing the fruit that we’d picked since monday, ready for market. Packing is a much nicer job inside the shed. I was given 6 bins to pack from, all the 2nd grade fruit with scratches on and they showed me how to use different plastic templates for the layout of the fruit to fit all the mangoes nicely in the boxes. Craig was making up box lids, sticking stickers on all the mangoes when I’d packed them and then stacking the boxes onto palettes and putting them in cold storage (just like being back at Mozzers!).
We battled through the week getting increasingly tired and narky with each other. Each afternoon there was a massive rainstorm which carried on through most of the evening, ripping a big hole in our little tarp with the weight of the water collected in it and the force of the wind. The camp kitchen was constantly inhabited by a very arrogant French couple who’re living in a sopping wet tent and do their best to get in our way when we try to cook tea. The shop closes at 6pm every evening so we have to drive back from work during lunch hour in the day to get bread and milk etc. costing us petrol and mileage on the van. We couldn’t do any washing cuz that would mean leaving it out to dry all day and risk getting soaked in the afternoon rain and everything was just one big stink. By Thursday we were barely talking to one another and then we found out that the I-tI’s intended for us to work these crappy 12 hour days every day until every last mango was picked and packed – could be up to another 14 days! After much griping on Thursday night we decided to ask for our wages on Friday as we still didn’t know how much we were getting paid and they weren’t planning on dishing out any money until all the picking was done. On Friday lunchtime Carmel paid us for the 4 full days we had worked from Monday to Thursday and we decided that the Friday morning that we had worked without pay would do to settle our consciences as we high-tailed it from the farm and never went back. It earned us a pretty sum of just over $1000 and we were happy with that. With sore fingers, aching feet and big hugs to each other in forgiveness for the all the snapping and bickering of the previous few days we looked forward to food shopping, clean knickers and a big snooze! Ahhh! In the mean time Sven and Marie, a much tougher pair of cookies than us (or maybe just stupider?) carried on working at their farm until Tuesday this week, 9 days straight! Although they didn’t have the sap burns that we had as Marie was packing all day and Sven was given one of those clipper-poles so they never came into contact with the demon stuff.
So, a happy ending you might think? Think again! By Saturday night I had started to develop a nasty red itchy rash around where the sap burns were, which spread and got worse over the weekend until I woke up on Monday morning with big swollen eyes and a swolled top lip. Having had experience of nasty allergies when I was little, we decided I’d better go to the hospital. We looked them up in the phone booked and rang before we set off, the receptionist told me I would be seen by a triage nurse and then have to wait for a doctor. The address said Lloyd street, so when we got to Mareeba (40 mins away) and found Lloyd street, the first thing we saw was a medical centre. This must be it! We went inside and waited ages while all the receptionists and nurses flapped about all denying having taken a phone call from me. For God’s Sake! We eventually figured out that we were in the wrong place and that the hospital was around the corner. By the time we got there and I’d filled in a shed load of forms I was so stressed out that the first nurse who came to me had to deal with me bursting into tears and explaining what a long way from home I am and how scared I was that I was gonna choke on my own tongue! She was very sympathetic, apart from the moment when she shoved a massive great needle in my hand and sucked a load of my blood out! Within 15 minutes of finding the hospital I was lying on a bed, telling my sorry story and the nurse decided I must be allergic to the mangoes or the sap or some chemical used on the farm and was just having a bit of a delayed reaction. The doctor came very briefly and told the nurse to give me an injection of Phenergan. It made me dozy and I slept a couple of hours in the hospital while they kept an eye on me but the swelling started to come down very quickly. I was happy with the results and so with a prescription for some more Phenergan tablets and a cream for my rash in hand we buggered off back to the caravan park.
Happy ending? No, sorry not this time. By Tuesday morning I was all swollen up again, worse than before and not a happy bunny. A quick read over the phenergan tablets showed me that they were nothing but glorified anti-histamines, a drug I’ve taken every day for most of my life. I knew exactly what I needed to put me right, a steroid called Prednisolone (unfortunately one that can only be prescribed by a doctor), so back to the hospital we go. The nurse we met on this occasion was much less sympathetic and as I was a lot calmer this time and clearly not about to drop dead as I had thought I was the previous day, she told me to go sit down and wait. So wait we did. . . . . For 3 and a half hours. By this time I’d taken so many anti-histamines that the swelling had started to subside a bit, at least it wasn’t getting any worse. So I said we might as well go home and wait and see what would happen next. Poor hungry, sleepy Craig obliged and then put up with me drifting in and out of doziness with the tablets for the next 24 hours. By the middle of Wednesday, 5 days after the symptoms had started I was still no better and our neighbour Bruce suggested that I go to Dimbulah hospital. It’s more of a clinic really, with only a nurse and no doctor, but she has been known to dish out medication where she sees fit and might just be able to help me out. She was a very lovely lady and although she couldn’t bend the rules quite so far as to give me the steroids I needed, she did manage to get me an appointment with a local doctor the same day who would be happy to prescribe it to me after a breif consultation. Back to Mareeba we go. The appointment itself cost me $51.50, as well as the $28 for the previous days’ medication and another $14.50 for the steroids but I got what I wanted, the wonder drug that I had used so many times when I was younger and now (Thursday) I seem to be on the mend. Thew swelling began to go down yesterday and although I’m a bit puffy and bruised around the eyelids, it’s mostly all gone now. The rash is still with me but hopefully another couple of days will see the end of that! And the great thing is that with all this medication I’ve paid for, I’ve got a plentiful supply for in case it happens again – not that I’ll be going near anymore mangoes for a long long time! So there you go, first and hopefully last visits to an Aussie hospital, sorry, no photos this time! Craig’s burns are also starting to heal now, he managed to avoid any kind of allergy, the little splashes on his arms and face are mostly gone but his hands are still a bit messed up – he’s got photographic evidence of that for when we get home! Dont worry about us, we’re tough bunnies and doing our very best to take care of one another.
In the meantime we went back to our old farm with the baby mango trees as they had said we could go back around 18th Jan if we still wanted to work, helping them with the pruning. Unfortunately their bosses have told them to hold off the pruning for another month. We’ve been discussing things with Sven and Marie and they’re spending the next few days getting everything hunky dory in their van, so all being well we should be off to Alice Springs very soon! Yay! We’re not deciding on an actual departure date yet, as sods law every time we make a plan something comes along and buggers it up, so it’ll be a spur of the moment decision I’m sure, such is the exciting life we’re living! You can breathe a sigh of relief that there won’t be any mammoth blogs for a while, it’s gonna take us about 5 days straight to drive to Alice so there won’t be much opportunity to get on the net or much to say probably, but we’ll be back in touch soon.
Hope everyone at home is well, Donna we’re thinking of you lots and hope all the huffing and puffing goes well (and fast!)!
Love to everybody, missing you all lots
Itchy & Scratchy xoxox
Tags: Travel
Sam