Chapter 8 Misunderstandings
There is always a great risk of misunderstandings when two people of different cultures meet, particularly if there is a language difference. Our children are not slow to take advantage of the earnest desire to learn that most of our farm helpers have. One poor lad had his toenails painted pink by my outrageous elder daughter who seriously told him that all New Zealand men wore nail varnish.
One common misunderstanding held by city dwellers is that everything on a farm is free. We have free eggs from our own hens – they don’t consider the cost of purchasing the birds, the feed and the materials to build their houses.
We have free fruit on the trees – we buy the land, purchase and plant the trees, fertilise them prune them and spray them.
One guest Brian, a Canadian, obviously thought our phone was free as well, a fact we didn’t discover until he had left the country with no forwarding address, leaving us with a bill for over one hundred dollars in toll calls. The next lot of farm helpers was not even allowed near the phone after that.
Use of the phone is always a tricky problem. It is unreasonable to expect someone with no transport to walk four kilometres to the nearest public phone box so we generally allow our farm helpers to make and receive calls on our telephone. This can get very frustrating when their family lives in the opposite time zone and we are jarred awake at two or three in the morning with someone ringing up for a chat. We keep a list of responses to make in various languages as a lot of our guests have family and friends who do not speak English. One Japanese girl had an admirer who for some reason had access to free international calls in Japan. Unfortunately he spoke no English. We attempted to explain to him in halting Japanese that his girlfriend was working on the farm and would be back later, but to no avail. He would phone at ten-minute intervals until in sheer self-defence we would disconnect the phone. He must have worked for a phone company otherwise the phone bill would have bankrupted them after the first month.
Sometimes misunderstandings arise between guests. One pair of American ladies, Patty and Jean, were very good friends and travelling companions until one fatal night. They had both gone out to dinner with a fellow countryman who they had met a few days before, and then Patty came home with a headache while Jean went to the movies with their gentleman friend. I was woken by talking at 2am and went out to the kitchen to find Patty on the phone to the local constabulary frantically trying to organise a search for her friend who had not yet returned home. I calmed her down and explained to the police that it was probably nothing to worry about as Jean had almost certainly decided to spend the night with her new friend. Patty was horrified by this and was sure that Jean would never do such a thing – then refused to speak to a shamefaced Jean who arrived back for breakfast looking rather the worse for wear after a night on the town.
E-mail has made a big saving to the phone bill as it becomes the preferred means of communication around the world. It has the benefit of not waking us in the middle of the night although it does have one major drawback. Whoever is checking and sending their e-mail tends to spend hours at the computer and this can cause quite a queue to build up. When we rather unreasonably point out that we use the computer for office work and accounting (David) and writing and music composing (Myself) our guests restrict themselves to heaving great sighs and as they wonder out loud who is trying to contact them, and make wistful remarks such as;
‘I said I would write to my mother every single day!’
If they see the study empty they are likely to make a mad dash for the computer to dial up their mailbox. One helpful young thing rearranged a lot of our computer files for us. We thanked her through clenched teeth and told the next arrival that the computer was out of bounds until our rage had simmered down.
We are a very musical family. David conducts the local town band, while the rest of us play sax, drums, trombone and trumpet. We have a lot of instruments around the house but seldom seem to get farm helpers with a musical background. They will come with us to any concerts we put on while they are here and some of them are keen enough to come down to band practice on a Thursday night.
There they have the rather disconcerting habit of clapping whenever we pause for breath. Whether this is in genuine appreciation of our music or thankfulness that we have stopped I am not sure, and haven’t liked to ask. Occasionally they will join in if David tosses them a percussion instrument. Hiroshi sat with bated breath throughout one very long musical arrangement until his big moment came and he was allowed to ding the triangle on the final beat.
A lack of lighting at night has fooled more than one guest, accustomed as they are to well lit city streets. Years ago when number one son was the only child in residence we had friends come to stay for a weekend. We assured them it would be no trouble having them to stay in the small house we lived in at that time, as we would put our son’s cot in our bedroom. This lasted a brief twenty minutes by which time we had both got up six times to see if he was still breathing so we pushed the cot into a corner of the hallway and went to sleep. One friend, Trevor, wandered out to find the bathroom – a necessary activity after an evening spent drinking beer. Much to his horror he bumped into the cot. Imagining himself to be in our bedroom Trevor turned in the other direction and found himself in his own room again. He blundered around for the next fifteen minutes, blind in the pitch dark and coming across the cot time and time again, convinced he was going into our bedroom. We slept on unaware of this nocturnal activity but he told us all about it the next morning. Eventually with a sigh of relief Trevor found his way to the kitchen from where he was able to go outside and avail himself of the bushes. He then spent the rest of the night on the living room couch, unable to find his way back to his own room.
A cousin of mine had a similar experience when staying with us and climbed into our bed under the mistaken impression that it was her own. Fortunately she chose my side of the bed to David’s evident disappointment as she was and is a very attractive lady.
Another guest also had problems with the deep country darkness. He decided to walk down to the local tavern after dinner and after an evening spent drinking started walking home. He was given a lift by a friendly couple who offered to drop him off at our gateway. Alas, he had by that time forgotten not only our surname but also the number of the house. After driving round fruitlessly for nearly half an hour he apologised and said he would rather they dropped him back at the tavern, as he was sure he would be able to find his way on foot. This they duly did and he set off to walk home again. Arriving at the next door neighbours' driveway he was sure he had found the right place and started the long lonely walk into the darkness. After ten minutes of this during which time he kept blundering into the kiwifruit vines on either side of the driveway he realised he must be in the wrong place. Retracing his steps he made it back to the road and eventually found our entrance. He staggered into bed at around 3.a.m. and decided he would invest in a torch before he next visited the tavern.
Our farm helpers came from a variety of backgrounds; some from small country villages and others from large cities. We used to envy those from large cities, thinking of all the entertainment and employment opportunities they had. I guess it isn’t too surprising that they in turn envied our laid back and unspoilt lifestyle, so much in fact that a number of them changed their goals in life and vowed to become farmers. I suspect that the climate and whatever fruit was in season had a lot to do with this. As our policy is not to work on wet days they didn’t experience any unpleasant working experiences and no doubt thought our life was one big holiday.
Country Life
Andy from the city came
He rubbed his hands with glee
He discovered avocados
Ripe and fallen from the tree
‘I’ll pick these up and take them home
My friends will envy me.’
Andy from the city came
It was his dearest wish
To go out b
oating on the sea
And try to catch a fish
‘When lightly crumbed and gently fried
It makes a tasty dish.’
Andy from the city came
The country life to see
Decided he would try to find
A lifestyle property
‘Now I’m here I know that this
Is where I want to be.’