October 31st 2012
I can't believe I've survived 9 days with these olives! It is by far the most physically challenging job I've ever done--ever! And that includes tobacco when I was 14. It's a good thing I went to the gym every day for almost a year before coming here..If I didn't I don't think I'd be able to get out of bed and do this every day. I know 5 1/2 hours each day, 6/days a week doesn't sound like much. But when you are stretching and bending and lifting 40-45 lbs. in each hand carrying the buckets of olives non-stop for the entire 5 1/2 hours, no break even for a drink of water, it hurts!! By 1:30 we are READY not only for a break but to eat! Grazziola (Gianni's wife) makes us a gourmet lunch every day. Every day it is different and we never know what we will get. After we clean up the kitchen and go back (around the corner) to our apartment, it is about 3 o'clock. Nothing is open. Everything closes from 1 till 5. And my body is screaming to lay down! Every day I say to myself that I don't know how I can continue doing this but after a nights' sleep, I get up and don't feel too bad. So I go and do it again and again.
Heli will be going home in 1 1/2 weeks and then I'll get a new roommate from Germany to help with the olives.
Gianni and Franco work right alongside us and truly work as hard as we do. Gianni is 73 and works like he's a youngster. Picking up each olive off the ground that didn't make the net is the most painful part of this job. Well carrying the buckets of olives is hard too but not as painful as the bending and squatting that it takes to pick up the individual olives.
Hoping the next farm in Sicily will be a bit easier.
It's raining tonight for the first time....well.....I think ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment