Diary (29th July 2024)
At the weekend, there was a dinner with seasonal workers from Poland, Herman (one of the employees), John and Johanna (the owners) and me.
We went to a Chinese restaurant about 10 minutes away by car, a large restaurant with about 30 tables and a lot of customers. It is an all-you-can-eat restaurant, with a variety of sushi, salads and desserts on the tables. Next to this is the WOK corner, where you can choose your own vegetables, meat and fish, which are then stir-fried in a wok. Drinks are also self-service, but the first drink is poured by John and Johanna, and everyone makes a toast.
They come to this restaurant with John and Johanna every year when their eight weeks of seasonal work is about to end. ‘I didn’t expect to eat Asian food here,’ I typed into google translate and started a conversation with Irena, who was sitting next to me. She recommended sushi and tiger prawns WOK. I followed her recommendation.
Her daughter lives in Germany and showed me pictures. On the beach, a smiling woman and her daughter, who is probably about three years old. ‘I’ll be finished with work in a week. I can’t wait to see my family’, she typed, as she too eats sushi with a fork and knife. Herman is fond of tractors and shows me a photo of his 200 miniature tractors. Some of them are miniature tractors like those used by this bulb farmers. It’s a vocation, Hermann. Johanna and I got into a conversation about swimming therapy with dolphins. As I chewed my sushi rolls, I wondered if other bulb farmers sometimes go out to eat with seasonal workers like this. It’s nice to sit around a table for a meal.
After dinner, Paulina brought fortune cookies for everyone. Mine says “When winter comes heaven will rain success on you.” Heaven, please make it a rain of success. Not just winter rains.
I am off to work!
