Monsters & Vegans Oh My!!
It’s
2014 and about time I started telling a few tales from my roller coaster year
of 2013. 2013 started off with a bang and only got better as it matured with
age. I was blessed to be able to travel, experience things you couldn't even
fathom unless you leave the suburbs and learn so much from everything I did. I
was given the opportunity to come to Australia for a visit 9 months ago but I
just haven’t gotten around to leaving yet. Even since Australia, I’ve been
seeing this beautiful country with my wonderful boyfriend who puts up with me
through my fits of “funger” and “hangriness”. We slept in the back of the car
travelling to the 12 apostles and snacked courtesy of 711 and any cheap
roadside café. I got my first job in Sydney which lead me to working with a
morbidly obese, ecstasy loving, cocaine raging Greek boss and his petite, gay
business partner that was potentially more bitchy than Regina George of “Mean
Girls” (Fetch is NOT going to happen!). After a turbulent 5 months of working
for the bosses likely summoned from hell, I decided it was time to leave and go
do some work on a farm so I could legally stay in Australia for a little bit
longer. Now here’s the perplexing part – the government tells you to complete
88 days of farm work but there are no terms or conditions set out for the
farmers or industries that take you to complete your time. So basically, it’s
at the farmer’s discretion to work you as much as they want for a little to no
wage, they don’t have to provide you accommodation and they can even charge you
for a shower after they’ve made you work a 16 hour day in the sweltering sun.
There’s no agency you can call to make sure this doesn’t happen to you and you
can’t call the police because you’re there on your own free will. Unless you
come across a Buffalo Bill farmer, then you can call the police. I went to the
only place I knew of to find work – Gumtree or as we say in Canada, kijiji.
There were hundreds of ads looking for backpackers to come pick fruit, muster
cattle, working in shearing sheds, child care that could be signed off as
agricultural work, jarring honey, picking beans and killing cattle for Big
Macs. It was a tad overwhelming because you have to go out into a rural area
and you really have no idea where you’re going to end up or with who. There’s
never a mention of a police check on either end and your accommodation isn’t
mentioned or shown so you can only hope for the best. I selected an ad that was
looking for a girl to work in a pub and do some casual renovation work and painting.
It seemed like a nice enough place and I received a response within an hour.
Unfortunately they had already found another girl for the spot but there was
another family willing to take me for my 88 days. Even better, I could catch a
train only an hour away from Sydney and then they would be able to drive me to
their farm the next day! The mum was 6 ½ months pregnant with two kids aged 7
and 5. Seemed nice enough – a real liberal, hippie sort from what she had told
me over the phone and in our emails. We went back to a rental property they
owned and were fixing up. I was told we were only staying the night and heading
back to the farm the next morning. I could not believe the state of the house
when I first walked in. I’m sometimes criticized for being a bit of a ‘snob’
and doing a mental ‘white glove test’ of people’s homes when I first arrive.
Just stepping on the floor was enough for me – there was over a week’s worth of
dirt on the floor, jam sandwiches smeared on the walls, a few days’ worth of
dishes piled up in the sink and on the floor, a filthy bathroom and just shit
everywhere in the house. (sorry about the language mom) I took a deep breath,
reminded myself I wasn’t in the city anymore and just needed to accept I had
moved in the Beverly Hill Billies. The mum got me started on dishes and
cleaning straight away but with no spray cleaners or soap and just a gross old
rag. The mountain of housework eventually diminished into a molehill and then
it came to lunch. If you know me well enough – there’s no doubt I love my food.
It’s a passion that was instilled in me while my mom was pregnant with me. I’ve
been well fed my entire life and appreciate a good meal or the effort when
someone else cooks for me. But this mum, needed to go back to high school home
economics and learn how to boil water properly. I remember being so hungry and looking forward to a good
afternoon fill. Well, instead I got lamb chops that were semi cooked but with
no seasoning on them at all (because “salt and pepper are bad for you”). The
poor lamb chops were accompanied with a side of spaghetti except she had
forgotten to stir the pasta while it was cooking so it was more like a
glutinous lump of unidentifiable food that was topped with a tin of tomatoes.
Yes, she literally put the pasta on the plate and then just opened a tin of
tomatoes and put them right on top of the pasta. My taste buds were crying
outrage as I took the first bite and couldn’t believe I was even eating this.
I’d never been turned off the idea of eating as quickly as my first day with
the hill billies. This was lunch number one, there were 87 to go. My day only
got better when it came to sleeping arrangements. The mum had told me not to
bother bringing a sleeping bag or a camping mattress because she had an abundant
supply for me at her place. After dinner that night, she told me she had
actually forgotten to bring me a mattress. No dramas, I had brought a yoga mat
and could sleep on that. And then it came, there was no sleeping bag or quilt
for me either. Just a picnic blanket that was 1 metre by 1 metre, a tarp on one
side and just a thin layer of polyester on the other. It was so cold that night
too that I had layered on all my clothes and was still freezing cold. The icing
on the cake was realizing that the carpet in the room had been previously
occupied by dogs who I’m pretty sure defecated on every square inch of the
place. I had the most miserable sleep that night and then woke up in the
morning to the smell of urine coming out of the kitchen…
I
remember waking up that morning not totally remembering where I was and being
confused by the sounds of children screaming and crying and a rather nauseous odor coming from the kitchen. I quickly snapped back that I wasn’t in the city
but rather voluntarily in some hell hole. I went outside my room to see the
kids biting each other while the mum was taking breakfast out of the oven. When
asked if I was hungry, I almost instinctually replied with a “does a bear shit
in the woods” but remembered there were young tender minds in my presence and
it was responsibility to positively influence them. I replied with a bleary
eyed “yes” and eagerly sat at the table waiting some breakfast. What was served
to me I wouldn’t even feed to my own dumpster diving Jack Russell. The “quiche”
staring back at me was made with cheese, carrot, onion, wilted lettuce,
tomatoes which had the rotten bits cut off and beef kidneys. I couldn’t even
look or smell this without wanting to throw up everywhere. I pushed my plate
away and said I was more of a “coffee first thing in the morning girl”. To my
horror, there was no coffee of tea anywhere in the house because they believed
caffeine seriously stunted your growth and was terrible for you. Luckily I
found a chocolate bar in my bag and that filled me up til dinner that night. We
were supposed to be leaving that afternoon to go back to their farm but that
was continually pushed to “tomorrow” which really turned into three weeks at
their rental unit in the suburbs. Just when I thought things could not get any
worse, we arrived at the family farm.
Any
low budget horror movie seems to start and finish in some sort of a
Tarantino-style abandoned house. In our subconscious, we’re disgusted and can’t
imagine such a place exists. We think that some sick bastard has a vivid
imagination that no real human being would ever physically be capable of
building something like it real life. Well, when we arrived at the family farm
at 2:30 in the morning after an eight hour trek, I could not believe what I was
seeing. We had arrived to a shack in the middle of a 25 acre field surrounded
by olive trees and five angry, territorial goats. Speechless is an
understatement for when I entered the house – the stench and the mess were
comparable to something you would find in the A&E series “Hoarders”. As
part of the reoccurring trend, there was just shit everywhere in the house. Any
sense of pride had obviously seeped out through the gaps in the windows and
walls into the country night. Sleeping arrangements were once again a treat.
This time, I had the luxury of sleeping in between two church pews amongst
moving boxes and odd pieces of furniture. The mum was even proud to brag about
how she had stolen the pews from a church that had left them outside whilst
renovating. I couldn’t think of a worse way to gain bad karma in life!! I woke
up the next morning to the two monsters trying to shove their fingers up my
nose and had to remind myself this was indeed reality and not some “Chucky”
style nightmare!! With the sunlight illuminating the features of the house – I was
left speechless. The mess and filth of the house was even worse than what I had
seen before. The stench of the house seemed more vivid and there were even more
toys and boxes of junk everywhere. So basically I was designated as the house
nanny/cook/maid/mediator for the Beverly Hill Billies. My day started off with
cleaning a fridge which had been full of food and been turned off for three
weeks while we were fixing the rental property. And then all the dirty dishes
that had been left for three weeks too. But don’t worry, this was the beginning
of domestic bliss and I don’t want to bore you! My time with the Clampetts made
me want to pull my hair out but more importantly it made me realize exactly the
type of individual I don’t want to be when I grow up. It made me realize I will
feed my children three nutritious meals a day and send them to school 5 days a
week. This mum thought the teacher was stupid so her kids only went to school 2
days a week and she homeschooled them 3 days a week with bible stories and
outdoor adventure time. Yeah, that’ll look fantastic on their university
application in 13 years. Oh yeah, did I mention that this mum didn’t believe in
cooking any food because she thought cooking food ‘killed’ any nutrition in it
and was toxic for your body. So these poor kids would have raw sausages for
breakfast along with an apple and celery sticks. Thanks for all of the kick ass
breakfasts, mom. Seeing what these kids ate made me wish I could have
teleported home for a plate of blueberry pancakes and given you a massive hug.
Don’t
worry, there’s a very very happy second part to this story. It involves a
country pub, 2 of the nicest people I have the pleasure of knowing, a lot of
farm work and the most quirky but lovely
little village the pub is in. And not a single child or crazy pregnant vegan
mother is in sight!! Stay tuned for part two coming this week.
Home Sweet Home. An Engineering Nightmare
