Someone actually found my Yank accent attractive today! This is a big deal, guys! Everyone’s laughed at it whenever I open my mouth, so this is a big step! I’m feelin’ good about it.
And there have been a million and one things I’ve been meaning to say in a blog post, and now of course they’re all gone. Let’s see. Well, if you happened to look at my Twitter feed last week you’ll have noticed that New Zealand taught me not to eat strange fruit even when it looks familiar (a lesson I obviously should have learned sooner). What happened was that I was on a walk and saw a tree with golden cherries on it. It was very Narnia-esqe. Anyway, I thought to myself that they looked so much like cherries they must indeed BE cherries, even though they were golden instead of red, so I tasted one and since it tasted good I ate the whole thing. Two hours later my throat was closing up and my stomach was twisted in knots. It was quite discomfiting. But I slept it off and the next day I was fine again.
Yesterday I learned another lesson from the great land of Aotearoa, vis, always take your camera when you go for a walk or bike, even if you don’t think you’ll need it. I missed an opportunity to get the sun putting rays through the clouds over the mountain range behind the complex. Major bummer.
But speaking of biking, I’m now partially independently mobile! I asked the Boss if he knew where I could get a bike, and he said he had one that he never used which I could borrow. It’s turned out to be a mountain bike with spectacularly low handlebars and a crooked front wheel, but it gets me up and down the hills here and provides me a way into town when I want to go and everyone at the complex has had one too many beers to drive.
Work has been going fine here, and I even got to try my hand at making a couple of blows (what you call a stroke with the clippers) on a sheep myself before I was reprimanded for flicking the clippers outward and cutting too far away from the skin. But hey, it was my first try, so good on me, I think. Wool handling has become easier, but I still hate being pared up with certain shearers. Uncle Ben, for one, is constantly cursing the sheep and will step on one of their legs hard if they wiggle too much. Not a pleasant shearer to work with. Sean, on the other hand, who is yet another Maori guy distantly related to the Boss, is great fun and will talk to you while you’re working and almost never cuts a sheep.
I’m also getting more used to life at the Complex. We haven’t had any more rowdy nights since my last post, which has made me less nervous about things. I’ve also decided that I’m going to be working here through the first weekend of March, which is the Golden Shears Shearing Competition, and then I’ll head off to my next job. Granted, I don’t know where that will be yet, but I have a few good ideas. One thing that this shearing contracting job has taught me is that I’d rather work on a farm and be involved in the day to day tasks than just going to one, shearing, and heading back home again. So that’s something learned.
And another thing I learned about today, which some of you may know about, and which really saddens me, is the death of Bjorn Norgaard. He died in a skiing accident recently, and even though we were never really close at school I had classes with him all through high school, and I know he was a great guy. Very funny, laid back and a very nice person to be around. I’ve been thinking a lot about him and his family today. I hope those of you in Northfield can help them through this, and I’ll be praying for them as well.
And as if one disaster per day wasn’t bad enough, there was another earthquake in Christchurch today, which is a town on the South Island. I didn’t feel anything up here, but I’m pretty sure the two islands are on different tectonic plates. I haven’t heard much about it, except that it may have been worse than the previous one, and many buildings have been destroyed. I was hoping to go down and see how the city was doing on my trip around the South Island, but now that this has happened I feel a bit of a tug towards going there to see if I can help rebuild. I don’t have any building skills, obviously, but I feel like helping hands in a disaster area can always be put to some use. More to come on these developments, I hope.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to end this post on a downer, but that seems to be the way it is. I’ve been a bit sad all day about everything, but I’m confident things will be alright. Until next time, I hope all of you are doing well, and I miss you.
2-24
Well, I’ve been a week in the shearing sheds already. And I’ve learned, over this week of waking up around 4:45 every morning, that I can fall asleep sitting up as easily as lying down! Woohoo!
I’ve also found out what a crazy sweet tooth I have. I find this out every time I live somewhere that’s not within walking distance of a corner store. At about 10pm every night I crave chocolate, and if I buy it now in preparation for the nightly craving I just eat it all too fast ‘cause it’s sitting around! Terrible.
And I’ve found that I really miss having access to the news when I want it. Basically everything I know about the world has gotten to me in hourly news broadcasts over the radio at work, which you can hardly hear over the shearing machines. Lately all the news has been about Christchurch, obviously, and so far as I can tell there’ve been 75 people killed and around 300 currently missing. I’ve been listening every time they talk about relief efforts, but it sounds like the only thing I’d really be qualified to do if I went down there is to help the college kids clean up debris, and they’re already restricting numbers because they have too many volunteers. I did donate three dollars via a Vodafone text initiative, though!
Anyway, I feel like I have a lot of anthropological things to say about New Zealand, like more lingo talk, and my frustration with the macho, patriarchal attitude of the rural folks, but I’m not in the mood just now, so bear with me and I’ll try to have a better update next time!
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