Although passing the time on the kibbutz can be slow, there seems to always be some kind of excitement or a new responsibility with work. One thing I have learned about the culture in Israel, there is not much consistency. Whether it is work related or personally, you never really know what you are going to get until it happens, and more often then not, it’s a lot different from what you may have slightly been expecting.
I suppose, in an environment that can easily become very monotonous, inconsistency and surprise will keep you on your feet. I’m never quite sure what might be waiting for me at work in the morning. I thought in the first few days of work I would have covered most of the unexpected, but I clearly that was not the case. With the start of a new week, came new job responsibilities, of course.
Moldy Cheese:
Wow! I wish I could have taken a picture because words could never describe the disgust I encountered when I showed up to work Monday. I had always seen the many blocks of moldy cheese in the fridge, but I just figured they forgot about them and just didn’t care to bother because at this point, they just needed to be thrown out. However, everything can always serve a purpose in a land where resources and financial support or scarce.
I showed up to the cheese house after the morning milking. There wasn’t much to work on because we were waiting for purchase orders so I started to become very excited because my workday might be ending early this morning, that’s great! But then, my boss just had to ask Josh if he needed any help, and although he didn’t really, he thought it would be funny to trap me in with him. The task for the rest of the day, scrub the mold off each block of cheese until it looks potentially edible. Let’s just say I have stopped eating any cheese served in the cafeteria because the kitchen is exactly where these non-sellable pieces of cheese were headed once we finished. So we sat and scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, for close to five hours. Block after block of cheese, deep breath of rotten moldy cheese after deep breath. We managed to wear through about 5 or 6 wire sponges. When a wire sponge looses a battle to cheese, I think that is a clear sign no one should even come near these blocks of cheese. Moldy cheese water was spraying everywhere. On my arms, my face, and my clothes. I was absolutely repulsed. I’ll have to try and take a camera next time I’m lucky enough to scrub moldy cheese.
But the fun didn’t stop Monday. When I showed to Tuesday after the morning milking, I saw Ryu was the lucky victim today. In the beginning I managed to keep busy making yogurts and pouring new bottles, but as they say, all good things must come to an end. I didn’t work slow enough to pass the time in the cheese house and now I was headed into the second day of the battle with the moldy cheese. This time they gave us a cheese slicer that made it a bit easier and Ryu offered to keep scrubbing if I’d do the slicing. By the end of the morning I had filled two buckets with mold cheese. I have now seen mold in each color of the rainbow; hard mold, fuzzy mold, chunks of mold, and moldy roots half an inch each deep. Had I been at home, these blocks of cheese would have gone straight to the trash, no questions asked.
Fortunately, after 2 days of cleaning moldy cheese we managed to empty all the refrigerators, at least for a while. Every time I pass them, I see the more recently made blocks, slowly beginning to mold and on their way to becoming another future battle for me. Hopefully I will have checked out by then.
The Goats:
My official report as a Goat Homicide Detective:
Early Wednesday morning, approximately 3:00 a.m., an innocent goat in the northern pen was brutally attacked and murdered. The suspect is believed to be a Wolf. The suspect managed to flee the scene, leaving behind a trail of evidence. There were pieces of goat found hanging from the top of the fence, providing enough evidence to determine the entry and escape path of the wolf. The only witnesses available for questioning are a bunch of dumb goats that probably already forgot what happened, even if we could communicate with them.
The coroner (now also apart of my job description) arrived on scene approximately 6:00 a.m. to scoop up the remains so they could be buried in the desert. This part was disgusting. I had one of two choices. One, grab the legs and pick them up like a rotisserie, or two, scoop up the intestines with a shovel while the other person picks up the body. For some reason I decided to go with option number one. On three, grab the front and back legs and lift. I grabbed a hold of the legs that had a very creepy and cold feeling. I was shocked how cold the goat felt. I have never touched anything that was dead and it was a very eerie. We wheeled the goat to a bin so it could be picked up later by the tractor scoop and taken to the middle of the desert to be buried.
This was the third attack this week. Fortunately I did not milk the morning there were 2 attacks. Apparently one goat had been tossed around and scattered throughout the pen. I’m glad I didn’t have to clean that up.
These are the two highlights of the week thus far. There is one more half day of work left, and then the 1-day weekend.
While I have been typing this, I have been listening to two of my friends, Dion from Holland and Johikim from London, bitching and laughing about their jobs and coworkers. It’s been pretty funny listening to their thick accents imitate some of the volunteers and attempt to talk in their respective accents. Guess you have to be here.
Well, I’m off to the evening milking, then dinner. The weather has been a bit cooler, but still very hot and the breeze feels like a high-powered heater. I tend to spend most the day in my little room resting in the A/C.
Have a fun and safe 4th of July weekend! Happy Birthday America!!!
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