Saturday, August 30, 2008

Day Laborer...for a day

Friday I spent the day out in the blazing sun picking produce. I volunteered for this, in exchange for some produce to take home. As I spent the day going from row to row to pick flowers, bush beans, turnips and ENDLESS amounts of tomatoes.

Something occured to me during the day. Why are we undecided on the issue of giving work visas to migrant farm workers? It's back breaking work...and I don't see lines of people fighting over the jobs. If it's a stepping stone for someone to get started, make more money than they would otherwise, why not? And the farm I was working at was at a pretty mellow pace...no one was pushed to work crazy fast, or deliver a certin volume...instead they had a specific list of things that needed to be provided to the restaurant. I can only imagine how grueling it must be on a commercial farm..yowzer.

Even the guys who were working there were making fun of me because I came their voluntarily and was excited to pick produce all day in the 95 degree sun... looking at it now, they must have thought I was insane, or too naive for my own good.

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