12 - Gatton: 1st week

I hadn’t heard the name Gatton before coming here in this huge town. Actually, this little reality lays at 90 km far from the well known Brisbane, it has got almost seven thousands of citizens and some shops and pubs (two); so the use of the noun “town” to refer to Gatton has been worthy.

This will be my house for the next 3 or 4 months. After Perth, where I had been for 6 months, and Brisbane, where I lived for 2 hours (basically, I didn’t see it), it’s the turn of Gatton. I moved here only for one and important reason: I want to stay in Australia longer and, in order to do that, I need to get my second Working Holiday Visa which allows me to extend my life overseas.

The decision to put all my effort to get the second Visa was born a few months ago, when I was still in Perth, and day by day was growing, becoming day by day bigger and stronger. Finally, the last helping hand was given by a clear and sharp picture which is still in my mind: in short, nowadays I can’t imagine my life in Italy, working as Engineer in the same office and with the same people who I used to collaborate with. I miss my friends, I miss my family and the beauty of Italy, but something inside of myself is telling me that now I should stay here, I need to let me go and live this experience deeper, trying to understand if this place, this vast island, can really become my next Land, my Nation.

Here I am. After 1 month studying English in a school, almost 5 months spent working as a cleaner, now I’m a farmer. A new experience is about to become real, actually has already began. At the get go everything seemed simpler, given that I was going to live with other foreigner people in a new house and, above all, I was going to start to work with a hourly pay which means almost 20 dollars per hour per 8 hours every day. But this is not going to happen. Not in the next days at least. Because the situation is more complicated that I thought. First of all, here in Gatton, just a few people have got a job which is paid 20 AUD/hour; second, it’s not so easy get a well paid job even because I’ve just arrived, so there are other people before me who can justly pretend to have a better occupation, since they arrived one or two months ago in this town; third, I’m living with two English guys and other three Italians and that doesn’t sound really good for my English; third, but I already knew before coming here, I should cope with some indignities or “injustices” as long as the people around you, who can decide if you’re worthy for a good job, will learn to know you and, hopefully, to appreciate you

Until that moment, I need to make an attempt to attain a better situation regard to my job and my accommodation, trying to do not be overly worried about the circumstances that surround me. So far, basically, I paid the rent for two weeks in advance (and the bond) and I started to work picking and cleaning the spring onions in a farm not so far from Gatton. My standard day become with the alarm, put at 4.50 am (yes Louise!!), and a fast breakfast; thus, I go to the office, which means the office of one of the Contractors (I’m gonna explain what a Contractor is in the next post), and I get on in a van that drop me in the spring onion’s field. After 5-7 hours, the same van pick me up and drop me home around 2 o’clock. As long as I concerned, this kind of job is literally (a) shit, but I even know that is not compulsory; nobody put a gun against my head and force me to do that. It’s my choice, I’m aware of the fact concerning why I’m here and why I’m working as a farmer. And I strongly believe that I’m going to complete this step of my life in Australia, to achieve this attainment, in order to get my treasure: the second WHV.