I told a few of you that i regretted impulsively purchasing the Ipod touch about two days before leaving for Israel. This very expensive item had me feeling buyers remorse almost immediately - especially since I should have been in a thrifty mind set setting off for two months of travel.
Well, I take all of that back. My Ipod is my most prized possesion right now and here's why: at the farm here from Sunday - Thursday I'm alone working in the fields with the thai men who don't speak a word of English. They may be happy working in silence but without my ipod I'd be bored out of my mind. Bored is the wrong work - this picking and plucking and farming in general is hard work and really who doesn't like to exercise to music? My music is probably the only thing getting me through.
Plus the men hate me. Well, they don't hate me but let's say it's obvious I have no idea what I'm doing and after hours and hours of work I get tired and they don't. The only words they seem to know are "come on, come on" which is to encourage me to cut lettuce faster, pick bigger beets or sort zuchinni with more accuracy.
I don't know what these two little guys are eating but let me say as laborers i think they should be paid a LOT! They have boundless energy and when I almost passed out today in a field picking weeds from the strawberry patch they stepped in and continued for almost an hour finishing the work I could not. Amir says with the money they make here they can take care of 2 families back in Thailand but then he told me one of the guys ran up a phone bill of 2,000 sheckels and that was a months salary. But when I calcuate that's only about 300-400 dollars.
My math is bad but I bet they're not being paid enough. I'm here as a volunteer and I feel taken advantage of I can't imagine how they feel. Sucks that I don't get to ask them either because i'm so curious about their lives back home but they don't even understand when I say "i'm sorry for being so bad at this work. I'm a middle class jewish girl from long island."
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