It takes two to mango .........

Well we have now been away 6 months - 6 months to go! Where has the time gone? Haven't done the blog for a while because we have been working! No rest for the wicked. We have now been working for Manbulloo mangoes, about 15 ks out of Katherine, for two weeks, with about three weeks work to go. Well, we wanted to do something that would take us out of our comfort zone, and this certainly has! very very different from what we were doing 6 months ago. the hardest part is standing all day - my legs have stopped aching, luckily, but my feet still get pretty sore by the end of the day. The work isn't hard, just tedious - and HOT! oh my god, i cannot believe you can sweat so much. yes, i know 'women merely glow', but i'm afraid 'glowing' disappeared on the first day!!! we drink lots and lots of water each day - I've never drunk so much water in my life! We had some fun the first week, with four different people telling us how to grade the mangoes. (warren and I and two other girls are the graders and sorters.) Each of these four people had their own idea of how the mangoes should be graded, so you would just get used to how one person wanted it done, them someone else would come along and say - no, you should be doing it this way! grrrrrr.......plus it was stressful, just when you thought you had it right, you were told you didn't - the four of us were getting pretty shirty I can tell you! however, we finally have one guy who has come in and he is the head honcho - we only have ONE person telling us what to do, not so confusing! though he stills changes his mind on a daily basis. we now just find it all very amusing! Going to the toilet is interesting, you have to make sure the seats are left down, or else the frogs (hotly pursued by the snakes) get in. the first time i lifted up the toilet seat and there was a frog looking at me, i just squealed and shut the toilet lid quick smart!
haven't seen a snake yet but there was one outside the packing shed the other day, so I wouldn't have gone to the toilet even if i was busting! such a different life to the one I used to have, ha ha! we start most days at 12.00 or so, then work until 7.30 at night. We sleep very well, and have the air conditioner on all night. it doesn't drop much below 30 degrees or so .....

so now for the photos ..........first one is our canteen! Yep, this is where we have smoko - never complain about your tea room again! at least it's open air! behind you can see the mango trees. they have, wait for it .......48,000 trees. can you imagine it.

We made the newspaper! I am signing autographs whenever you're ready, ha ha!

There are about forty of us staying at the same caravan park - the pickers start early in the monring, i cannot imagine picking mangoes in this heat, but they do it. the money is apparently very good, it would want to be! We packing and sorting people are an interesting bunch - we are the oldies, of course - there are a couple of aussie girls who are travelling around australia, and also about 12 - 14 Korean and Taiwanese - they are great, very hard workers, never complain. Their spoken english isn't very good, but their written english is great. One of them explained to me that at school they read and write english, but of course never get the chance to actually speak it, hence the poor standard of their spoken english. Add the fact that (a) we speak so fast, and (b) use so much slang etc, and it makes it doubly hard for them to converse with us.

Here we are waiting for the bus ......................... (under the tree of course, the only cooler place!) It's 11.15am, around 37 degrees by this time.

And here's the bus!

Outside the packing shed - and another load of mangoes goes off to Woollies - if you buy a mango with a Manbulloo sticker on it this summer, I can guarantee you that Warren and I have seen it - we grade and sort 75 bins of fruit each day, thousands and thousands of 'em.

Inside the packing shed -- the packers work along this row.

And the boxes - I have never seen so many in my life, this is just one small stack! We pack for export (the good stuff), the local market (the second best stuff) and for bulk - the crap stuff.

This is where the fruit is washed - it's tipped it down the far end, comes through the wash, is dried, then tumbles out ................................

of this machine - you can just see the mangoes peeping out. And then falls on to the "table" below ......................this is the sorting table - every piece of fruit comes across this. We have started a 'family' of distorted fruit - you can imagine what some of them look like! The things you do to keep yourselves from going nuts!

So although there are days that we look at ourselves and wonder what on earth we are doing here, it's been an amazing experience. Good to do something very, very different - (good for the figure too!)

Gotta fly, it's just about time to start, lots of love to all.! x x x x