To My Housemates at Oskat Forest Park

There are so many things to worry about when traveling—so many plans to be made, streets to navigate, and money to be spent on even basic things like shelter and food. So when all of these things come together perfectly it is amazingly special. For the last few weeks I have been living in a backpacker-converted farm house called Oskat Forest Park with about 25 other people. We are all working in the kiwifruit industry for the season—either picking or working at the factories—to save money and then embark on travels through New Zealand or throughout the world.

The farm house is very old and not well maintained, and there are only two showers for the 20 of us lucky enough to be in the main farm house—the other 5 or 6 live in a small shed down the hill. The work is also less than perfect. We all have very physical jobs and work long hours.

But there is something special about all of us living here together. We are from Argentina, Chile, Germany, France, Scotland, Ireland, and the United States, and we are aged from 19 to 31. In our home countries, we worked in many different jobs and had all different kinds of interests. But here we all have at least one thing in common: we longed for something more, something exciting and new.

Last night, we had a party for some of the people who are leaving our farm house to continue with their travels. We celebrated that they were saying goodbye to the kiwifruit--the fruit which haunt all of our dreams since we work 8-11 hour days picking and packing them.

Though I have only known my housemates for the few weeks that we have worked here, I feel close to them. We have spent these few weeks sharing complaints about the condition of our old farm house, learning about the food of all of our cultures and laughing about how silly we look at work and how tired we feel afterward. Everyone seems to love to learn from one another, and that interest we all have in each other creates some kind of magnetic, positive energy. It runs through the house drawing people to the kitchen table to talk about everything—our similarities and our differences.

I don’t know why this particular group of people is so special to me—maybe we hit some perfect ratio of kind, compassionate, curious people altogether. Or maybe it is that we are all here sharing this one short time in each other’s lives, when we are all on the same type of journey to discover new places, things and people. Whatever it is, I treasure it, and I want to thank all of my housemates for making this few weeks wonderful when without you, they would have been terrible. I wish you all luck, and I hope we will all continue to make great connections with new people throughout our lives.

Left to right this is Guille, me and Alex with our friends from the kiwifruit packhouse: Daniela and Mariana. I think in this picture we are showing our anger at the kiwifruit, but I'm not really sure.

Tess and Paul, from Ireland and Scotland, respectively.

One of the two Goodbye Kiwifruit cakes made for the party.

Wady, Pablo, Ingrid, and Mariana are from Chile and Argentina. This spot later became our Cumbia dance floor.

Daniel and Laura are a couple traveling together from Argentina, pictured here with Ingrid from Chile.

We have a slight Argentina vs. Chile rivalry in the house. I think it is always playful, but since I can't understand Spanish when spoken that quickly, I can't be entirely sure.

Me, Mercedes, Abe and Guille

Pablo and Ingrid. Ingrid got us all up on our feet dancing right after this picture was taken.