Because to tell the truth, Mildura and I did not get along very well from the beginning ...

 

My friends and my life in Melbourne were left behind to fulfill this great goal that within five minutes of arriving I had already regretted it. Because coming from living with friends and sleeping alone to having to share a room, a bathroom, and the only car and washing machine available with twenty other strangers were habits to which I was definitely not used to them. Although I had already stayed in hostels for several holidays with friends, this was different: I wasn't on a holiday and I was completely alone. The only link between this rural town located seven hours north from Melbourne and me was Larry, an Australian in his 50s who promised me a job in exchange for living in the hostel he owned. This is how the Australian farm system works, an underworld ruled by farmers and contractors in which backpackers are the main (and only) workforce.  

 

I always knew that that "contractor" of Mildura would be one of those people hard to forget. People described him as a clueless and unpunctual man, but with good intentions and a good heart. Of all these characteristics, I was able to confirm the first two without even knowing him: when he interrupted our conversation on the phone to hold another four simultaneously or when I had to wait for him, just arrived, for three hours so that he assigned me the room where I would sleep the next two months. But what no one had warned me about was the peculiarity of his outfit, which is why I couldn't hold my jaw when I saw him for the first time. It was dark, but he was still wearing a patterned bandana that covered his hair and some huge, square and plastic blue sunglasses. Over the time I verified that he has a whole collection of glasses in other colors. The cell phone was an extension of his hand: he hooked his headphones on one ear to talk and manage, on the one hand, the following day's work for 50 other young people who had also came to Mildura because of him. With the other, he personally attended the daily affairs of the thirty people who lived with me at the Sunset hostel.

 

Mildura had brought us all together for one reason only: to fulfill the 88 regional work days that the Australian government imposes as a condition for applying for a second year of Work and Holiday. That was my great goal to achieve for the second half of the year and what makes Mildura and other towns around the country completely out of the reach of tourists, to be populated by backpackers from all over the world.  

 

The salad of emotions of the first days was digested as I got to know a little more each of the members of the hostel, who from that day would be the closest thing to a family. Many of them had already been living there for several months, some by their own decision and others due to the famous pandemic that made impossible any type of movement. At the time of my arrival we were 28 people, which we came from 12 different countries: Australia, Ireland, Japan, Italy, China, Corea, France, Argentina, Colombia, Germany, Chile and England. Sitting next to each other at the huge kitchen table we were the best TEG game: together we formed a great mass of multiculturalism that, although it was hidden under the common English that we spoke between all of us, was glimpsed through the personal dialogue with some compatriot or by the plate of food in front of us.  

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But with the passing of the weeks and the accumulated coexistence, the distances were shortened with scissors until we found ourselves in the common point of today, in which we are simply young expatriates who seek to live something different from what we were used to in our country of origin .  

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Outside doors we were also the large Larry's family: a little weird, noisy, and "perfectly imperfect." For some reason you couldn't not love us. You just needed to see us getting down from the family car in a queue, embarrassed while Larry apologized the boss for bringing us late, and to witness the group workouts in the park in charge of Minkyiu, the Korean king of fitness, to hate us and love us at the same time. That same duality happens with Larry: one day we want to kill him for leaving us standing two hours after work during the coldest winter and the next one we love him (a lot) for buying us McDonalds without any apparent reason. Or yes. Because the excuse he gave us was that it was the prize of being the few people who went to work with hangover that day. With this other side of him he compensates his lateness, his poor jobs and the shitty excuses he gives us. 
 

All these things made me gradually put aside the stormy question of "what for?" from the farm to start enjoying the little things about this experience. After all, being a small link in the Australian food chain or setting up an irrigation system in vineyards of thousands of hectares would be a once in a lifetime works. There was something anecdotic in my daily routine that I accomplished that every day I befriend her a little more and even end up choosing her (considering the circumstances).  

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...

 

"Go home!" From the other end of the line, the supervisor declares the day over. An echo of voices automatically generates, repeating the same phrase with double effervescence. The hour-long drive back home at the end of the day is always my favorite moment: the natural stove of the setting sun and the unmistakable voice of Gregory Porter are the responsibles for it.  

 

We arrive at the hostel yawning,  with muddy boots and branches and leaves caught in our disheveled hair. We have no more strength, only the one reserved to cook at night and make lunch for the following day. But even so, the Murray River always calls us at the same time. We will never fail him, we need it for the daily battery recharge that only its stealthy waters, seeing the ducks swimming comfortably in it and its fresh air gives us. The battery is only charged when the moon begins its walk, like now. We go into saving mode until the next morning.