I had worked in a pig abattoir for one month, from 6/11 to 7/11. From Perth, go east by train, you can get to a terminal Midland which is a big town; then further by bus to Mundaring; then by car 15 minutes to get to the pig abattoir. From the factory, you can walk 25 minutes to a petrol station. If you would say that's a long time, it's nothing to walking one hour to a small town Wooroloo. So basically the factory and the share houses provided by the company are isolated.
Detour: Since came to Aussie, I'd started to lose my equpements. Belt, glasses box, memory card reader(broken), bread knife and fork(forfeited in an airport), chopsticks(stolen), a pants and a white jacket and a t-shirt, and now I lost my digital camera(2G SD memory card, four rechargeable batteries, 256MB microSD and adapter).
About the content of the job:
there are two departments of the abattoir: slaughter floor and boning room. I worked in the slaughter floor.
Slaughter floor: (Einstein said: imagination is more important than knowledge.)
First, hang the pigs up on the rail by crossing the hind legs with hooks. At this time, the pigs are still alive, but have been put into sleep by using some gas.
Second, cut off the throat. Now they're dead and bleeding.
As the rail goes on, the pigs(although dead already) will go through a series of stages. Well, like a hell.
Use bursts of flaming fire to burn off the hair. Cut and open the belly and take out the heart, liver, lung, and etc..
This is a pretty big abattoir. Most of the workers are full-time. Few backpackers. Some full-time workers are from China, Philippine, Vietnam, etc.. The factory supports them to get the permanent residence. So they don't train backpackers to hold a knife and do some complicated work. A backpacker can do: 1 cleaning, 2 head cutting, 3 fat removal, 4 tagging, 5 push processed pigs into chiller.
Boning room: most work here are easy, just put the pork into boxes or bags.
There are about 200~300 workers. But only several backpackers. As I know, two English, two Japanese, two Koreans, two Taiwanese.
I went to work at bad timing. It's winter so the pigs eat more but don't grow up. Faint. Consequently, the factory can kill lesser and lesser everyday. And cold weather, hmm, I just couldn't like it.
About friends:
I met a English guy here, my roommate, Harry. (On the left)
And a Philippine guy, Joe, who told a joke:
What will you think when a prostitute snivels?
And others, but we don't talk much.
I did about two or three weeks of pig pushing. There were three other Aussie guy who also did the work. Trevor, Scott, Nathan. Pretty young, about 20 years old.
About accommodation:
The sharehouse is only for 30AUD. A room, a bed, and a blanket provided. Originally there is no hot water, what the fuck. The Philippine buy the gas and heating equipment to generate hot water for shower. I don't like it. Harry told me that once a time somebody used all the hot water, the Philippine would be very angry. And the kitchen, all equipments(microwave, pots, bowls, dish-washing liquid, etc..) were bought by Philippine. Faint. So I bought a pot but it's burned after. Faint.
PS at night, you could see many mice in the rubbish bin in the kitchen.
The supermarket is pretty far away. I had to "beg" the Philippine to take me to buy the food once a week. That's not good. The factory should give this service.
About sickness:
This was my first time to get sick in Australia. Very bad. In a morning, I felt very uncomfortable. But I felt better after lunch. When home at night, I was sure that I got sick. Cough, snivel, sore throat, headache, hardly can move my body. I went to bed very early. Next day, I didn't even have strength to cook but I had to. Even worse, my meat vegetable were rotten. What the heck! I was sick and I didn't have good food and nutrition to consume. What the fuck! I was scared that if it's possible I got sick because the dirty bloody pig abattoir. Shivering...
I thought I was fully recovered. But it's not. After leaving the pig abattoir, I was back to Perth. And I got sick again. More serious. Maybe it's a flu. In the one week in Perth, I almost spent my time staying in the bed. Extremely uncomfortable. And it's raining, cold, windy Perth, shit.
After calculating the money and the time I had, I had to abandon west coast. I flies to Cairns. It's warm there so I got healthy.
Update 2009.02.13, I copied two photos from Peace's facebook, thank you.
Answer to Joe's joke: She's full!
No comments:
Post a Comment