I Am a Migrant Farmworker, and Other Strange Facts You Probably Didn't Know

So, a lot of things have happened since last I wrote, which means I've got a lot of stuff to write about. However, I'm very cold, so I'm going to try to keep it short (which won't happen).



First off, Rotary Weekend at Nerac. This weekend was far better than the one at Royan for two reasons: the rooms were larger and heated. Besides that, both weekends so far have been awesome. Moving on, it was great to get together with all the exchange students again, and talk with them and compare experiences and chum around and sleep very little (or not at all, in some cases). Well, I slept very little, but I had to get sleep because I was coming down with a cold and literally could not keep my eyes open. Basically the weekend was amazing, from doing another high ropes course to chumming around with friends to, in my case, speaking in French with people from all over the world. Unfortunately, the generally excepted language at get-togethers is English, since everyone speaks it to a varying degree, and usually better than French, but this weekend, unlike the last, also saw an increase in French conversation.



Secondly, I am now a migrant farm worker. Not quite sure exactly how it happened. It was kind of weird at first when my host dad told my Mathilde was going to harvest kiwis over the vacation for a job, since in the US harvesting fruit has a sort of, "Oh, that's the Mexican immigrants' job" stigma to it. But in France it's the job of the high schoolers, which means that today I went out to a farm and picked kiwis all day. It was actually really nice. The work, though not too hard, was satisfying. And I've also seen what farmwork can be: friendly, welcoming, even a desirable job and a safe working environment for teens. Definitely a much better alternative than the slave-labor-evolved-into-immigrant-exploitation that is so common in the US. But that's all for now, really. Oh my goodness, I kept it short.