The identifiable beauty of learning lessons
Lesson learned. Lots of lessons to go...
I don’t write so much anymore because daily circumstances force me to put all the energy into finding little odd jobs to keep the dream alive. Nevertheless, in the last few days, I learned some lessons about the consequences of taking on every opportunity that comes along. At the same time that a grandson – who’s Jewish family survived the horrific actions of the Nazi’s in the Second World War because of some brave farmer and his family in “Zeeland” (southern province in the Netherlands), hide them in a secret room next to a Moroccan sergeant from The Daoud group, who managed to escape as a forced laborer at the German construction on the Atlantik-Wall – is killing unarmed protesters and the Boar from Pig Paradise is lightning up the fire in the middle East by opening the embassy in Jerusalem, I was on my way to start on a 2 day job.
I didn’t have much information but it involved some cleaning up and painting a few walls of a rental place that was left by the tenants in a bit of a filthy state. The job was offered to a good friend of mine by a “real estate agent/housing mediator, or whatever name all these foreign agencies – there seem to be more than native ones – come up with, and both of us assumed that it was in the area and cleaning/painting tools and such were to be provided. We had to come over to the lady who arranged it so she would drive in front of us to the property as it would be hard to find.
At the arrival, a brushcutter was loaded up and without even saying “Bom Dia” or an introduction, not to mention a handshake, we followed the car, racing with high speed through little villages, cobble roads and winding paths. A few times I lost sight of the silver arrow, but at some point, after using almost all the fuel I had in my tank, we arrived at a cottage in the middle of nowhere. The first lesson learned is never to trust people about distances, always demand to get an address or at least GPS codes. We unloaded the cutter and so assumed that there would be some high grass needing a cut. That turned out a pretty difficult job without the wire for the cutter and no fuel for the machine.
We met two other ladies of whom one turned out to be the owner of the house on the end of 50 steps down site, not reachable by car, not even a wheelbarrow.
The first assignment was to paint the front wall of the house and the complete interior of the kitchen. My Portuguese friend has fewer problems with heights than I do, so we decided he would paint outside, I would paint inside. With some pipes, a pallet and some wood we placed and secured the crooked ladder. No, although the job at 8 meter high would require scaffolding, non of any safety features were available. It scared the hell out of me, as the nearest emergency hospital was at least 40 kilometres away, which after experiencing the roads, would take at least an hour, no matter how hard you would drive. We had two options; get back into our cars and take our loss in fuel and time, or try to do everything as safe as possible. I guess that’s exactly why people like us are asked to do this kind of jobs, we can’t refuse, we need the money.
Around lunchtime, we were asked whether we brought lunch with us or would we go out for lunch. Go out for lunch? The nearest place is 20 minutes drive away, we only get paid a “cleaners wages” so no we won’t go “out for lunch”. I guess working for Portuguese people (and a lot of very friendly immigrants) we got used to the custom of being provided with at least something to eat and a cup of coffee during lunchtime. Somehow it seemed possible to get one sandwich each with a cup of tea. After a half hour break, we went on with our work. I finished the kitchen walls, did some repairs on the electric system and some other small repairs, my friend finished the outside wall and around 5 PM we went on our way, trying to find our way home in the labyrinth of little streets. Luckily I have installed Meo-drive on my mobile, it brings you back to civilisation but doesn’t see the difference between a sandy path that requires a four wheel drive and normal paved roads. Nevertheless, I made it home by a quarter after 6.
The next day, of course, I was more prepared. While in the meantime a friend of mine had to evacuate from his house in Groningen (Northern province of The Netherlands) because of earthquake number 189, due to the natural gas that’s been pumped out of the ground by Shell, who is taken everybody to court that wants them to pay for the damage (more than 50.000 families and their properties), I was making my lunch box, the Dutch way, sandwiches with cheese, filling my bag with a jar of instant coffee and loading the battery of my phone so it could bring me back to the place I was the day before. At 7.30 I drove of to pick up my friend and we even manage to be on site at 9PM. I’m not likely to step down from a deal made, so when asked to replace (repair) the bathroom ceiling, I agreed and got on with taking out carefully the unpainted plasterboard. My friend took the wire and fuel for the cutter from his own machine which made it possible for him to start cutting the grass. I looked around the property for materials to level the bathroom ceiling. In the end, I cut up the pallet that we used to secure the ladder, found some old pieces of wood in the attic and made a “new” level construction to reinstall the plasterboard pieces.
While the owner of the cottage and her friend went away, we made coffee and had our lunch. Around 4 o’clock I finally had all the plasterboard back up, using half a jar of screws I brought along. It wasn’t a surprise the needed some careful treatment, because they’ve been exposed to water all this time and the paperback and front were completely rotten. With 3 different kinds of leftover filler and some silicon paste, it didn’t look too bad at all in the end. Of course with a little bit of planning and a small budget of 50 Euro’s the bathroom ceiling could have been new and according to standards (not using untreated old rotten pallet wood and different fillers), but it only had to look nice at a first glamp, the property was going on the market anyway.
The last question was to bring all the rubbish to the container, and yes, we got an old washing machine up the 50 steps, bags full of old household items and all kinds of other junk. I happen to be the fool with the van, so guess what.. The old washing machine was loaded up in the car of an old man (81, I heard afterwards) and he should drive to the special skip that was at the bottom of the street. I just unloaded all the stuff at the first container I passed, I’m not going to drive around with somebody else’s rubbish. At the end of the street, indeed, there was a place where some old kitchen appliances were standing. I stopped to help the old guy unloading that heavy machine. But in a second there was a man, shouting angry, in the line of: "get off my property". At that point, the owner of the cottage, and therefor of the rubbish including the washing machine, drove up. She was the one telling us this was a skip and that the stuff would be collected every now and then. Well... it wasn’t! It turned out that the angry man is doing the same thing I do, recycle a bit. He’s sick and tired of people who just assume they know it all just dump things he can’t use and didn’t ask for, on his land. I went off, I had enough of it, and was certainly not in the mood to be dragged into a discussion.
In the end, I did the jobs I was asked to do for a “cleaners wages” and I think that was more than enough. Not to be mistaken, I liked the work, it’s what I can do. The owner of the house didn’t know who we were or where we came from, it was arranged by an “agent”, who we never saw again after she left in 2 minutes on the first day. We got a tip of 4 Euro on top of the amount we earned by the hour, after explaining I wasn’t told that I had to drive all that way up there, I even got a little extra, the lady of the cottage and here friend were friendly but obviously used to other relations between them and the people they hire, then the standards we became used to here in Portugal. I made it home safe, made enough money to pay for the fuel to drive up there and had some left to get some instant coffee, bread and cheese at the supermarket. Lesson learned here is; never assume anything, even the obvious. The only thing I have to investigate because I haven’t found out the meaning behind it yet, is the remark of that South-African owner of the house, me and my brave ladder climbing friend worked on the last two days; “working like a slave on his birthday”
I don’t write so much anymore because daily circumstances force me to put all the energy into finding little odd jobs to keep the dream alive. Nevertheless, in the last few days, I learned some lessons about the consequences of taking on every opportunity that comes along. At the same time that a grandson – who’s Jewish family survived the horrific actions of the Nazi’s in the Second World War because of some brave farmer and his family in “Zeeland” (southern province in the Netherlands), hide them in a secret room next to a Moroccan sergeant from The Daoud group, who managed to escape as a forced laborer at the German construction on the Atlantik-Wall – is killing unarmed protesters and the Boar from Pig Paradise is lightning up the fire in the middle East by opening the embassy in Jerusalem, I was on my way to start on a 2 day job.
I didn’t have much information but it involved some cleaning up and painting a few walls of a rental place that was left by the tenants in a bit of a filthy state. The job was offered to a good friend of mine by a “real estate agent/housing mediator, or whatever name all these foreign agencies – there seem to be more than native ones – come up with, and both of us assumed that it was in the area and cleaning/painting tools and such were to be provided. We had to come over to the lady who arranged it so she would drive in front of us to the property as it would be hard to find.
At the arrival, a brushcutter was loaded up and without even saying “Bom Dia” or an introduction, not to mention a handshake, we followed the car, racing with high speed through little villages, cobble roads and winding paths. A few times I lost sight of the silver arrow, but at some point, after using almost all the fuel I had in my tank, we arrived at a cottage in the middle of nowhere. The first lesson learned is never to trust people about distances, always demand to get an address or at least GPS codes. We unloaded the cutter and so assumed that there would be some high grass needing a cut. That turned out a pretty difficult job without the wire for the cutter and no fuel for the machine.
We met two other ladies of whom one turned out to be the owner of the house on the end of 50 steps down site, not reachable by car, not even a wheelbarrow.
The first assignment was to paint the front wall of the house and the complete interior of the kitchen. My Portuguese friend has fewer problems with heights than I do, so we decided he would paint outside, I would paint inside. With some pipes, a pallet and some wood we placed and secured the crooked ladder. No, although the job at 8 meter high would require scaffolding, non of any safety features were available. It scared the hell out of me, as the nearest emergency hospital was at least 40 kilometres away, which after experiencing the roads, would take at least an hour, no matter how hard you would drive. We had two options; get back into our cars and take our loss in fuel and time, or try to do everything as safe as possible. I guess that’s exactly why people like us are asked to do this kind of jobs, we can’t refuse, we need the money.
Around lunchtime, we were asked whether we brought lunch with us or would we go out for lunch. Go out for lunch? The nearest place is 20 minutes drive away, we only get paid a “cleaners wages” so no we won’t go “out for lunch”. I guess working for Portuguese people (and a lot of very friendly immigrants) we got used to the custom of being provided with at least something to eat and a cup of coffee during lunchtime. Somehow it seemed possible to get one sandwich each with a cup of tea. After a half hour break, we went on with our work. I finished the kitchen walls, did some repairs on the electric system and some other small repairs, my friend finished the outside wall and around 5 PM we went on our way, trying to find our way home in the labyrinth of little streets. Luckily I have installed Meo-drive on my mobile, it brings you back to civilisation but doesn’t see the difference between a sandy path that requires a four wheel drive and normal paved roads. Nevertheless, I made it home by a quarter after 6.
The next day, of course, I was more prepared. While in the meantime a friend of mine had to evacuate from his house in Groningen (Northern province of The Netherlands) because of earthquake number 189, due to the natural gas that’s been pumped out of the ground by Shell, who is taken everybody to court that wants them to pay for the damage (more than 50.000 families and their properties), I was making my lunch box, the Dutch way, sandwiches with cheese, filling my bag with a jar of instant coffee and loading the battery of my phone so it could bring me back to the place I was the day before. At 7.30 I drove of to pick up my friend and we even manage to be on site at 9PM. I’m not likely to step down from a deal made, so when asked to replace (repair) the bathroom ceiling, I agreed and got on with taking out carefully the unpainted plasterboard. My friend took the wire and fuel for the cutter from his own machine which made it possible for him to start cutting the grass. I looked around the property for materials to level the bathroom ceiling. In the end, I cut up the pallet that we used to secure the ladder, found some old pieces of wood in the attic and made a “new” level construction to reinstall the plasterboard pieces.
While the owner of the cottage and her friend went away, we made coffee and had our lunch. Around 4 o’clock I finally had all the plasterboard back up, using half a jar of screws I brought along. It wasn’t a surprise the needed some careful treatment, because they’ve been exposed to water all this time and the paperback and front were completely rotten. With 3 different kinds of leftover filler and some silicon paste, it didn’t look too bad at all in the end. Of course with a little bit of planning and a small budget of 50 Euro’s the bathroom ceiling could have been new and according to standards (not using untreated old rotten pallet wood and different fillers), but it only had to look nice at a first glamp, the property was going on the market anyway.
The last question was to bring all the rubbish to the container, and yes, we got an old washing machine up the 50 steps, bags full of old household items and all kinds of other junk. I happen to be the fool with the van, so guess what.. The old washing machine was loaded up in the car of an old man (81, I heard afterwards) and he should drive to the special skip that was at the bottom of the street. I just unloaded all the stuff at the first container I passed, I’m not going to drive around with somebody else’s rubbish. At the end of the street, indeed, there was a place where some old kitchen appliances were standing. I stopped to help the old guy unloading that heavy machine. But in a second there was a man, shouting angry, in the line of: "get off my property". At that point, the owner of the cottage, and therefor of the rubbish including the washing machine, drove up. She was the one telling us this was a skip and that the stuff would be collected every now and then. Well... it wasn’t! It turned out that the angry man is doing the same thing I do, recycle a bit. He’s sick and tired of people who just assume they know it all just dump things he can’t use and didn’t ask for, on his land. I went off, I had enough of it, and was certainly not in the mood to be dragged into a discussion.
In the end, I did the jobs I was asked to do for a “cleaners wages” and I think that was more than enough. Not to be mistaken, I liked the work, it’s what I can do. The owner of the house didn’t know who we were or where we came from, it was arranged by an “agent”, who we never saw again after she left in 2 minutes on the first day. We got a tip of 4 Euro on top of the amount we earned by the hour, after explaining I wasn’t told that I had to drive all that way up there, I even got a little extra, the lady of the cottage and here friend were friendly but obviously used to other relations between them and the people they hire, then the standards we became used to here in Portugal. I made it home safe, made enough money to pay for the fuel to drive up there and had some left to get some instant coffee, bread and cheese at the supermarket. Lesson learned here is; never assume anything, even the obvious. The only thing I have to investigate because I haven’t found out the meaning behind it yet, is the remark of that South-African owner of the house, me and my brave ladder climbing friend worked on the last two days; “working like a slave on his birthday”
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