Georgia: Watermelon Harvesting

After posting yesterday, I didn't take an afternoon nap. I played soccer for a few minutes in the garden with my host brother. It involved a lot of ducking because of all the tree branches at eye level. And then I went with him and his father, what's his name, I forget, into his car, and we drove for twenty minutes or so to a watermelon field. We picked up three other people, two older guys with huge bellies, and a younger guy, maybe eighteen, and we spent the rest of the day picking watermelons tossing them to each other, and putting them in piles around the perimeter of the field. When they found out I was American, a few of them got a kick out of saying "fuck you!" to each other for a while. One guy had his toddler along, and had trained him upon coaxing to chirp out, "puck you! puck you!"

After a few hours, one of them drove a van into the field. The field was full of bumps and small ditches, and to drive such a van into such a field was a bold move, it's low suspension and tires worn slick enough to be eligible for winter sports. It was hard not to admire the sheer optimism, the glass-half-fullness of perspective of the driver and those calling him on with advice and commands. Several times we pushed the van back and forth, breathing in exhaust, getting mud sprayed over us. The field filled with the smell of rubber and a suffering clutch, but eventually we were piling the watermelons into the van, and then encouraging the vehicle along to the next pile. I can't imagine we saved any time. Whether it's more difficult to get an empty van into a field, or a watermelon-packed one out of one, is a riddle I don't know the answer to, because it got dark and we left the van there in the field, and drove back. Tired? They kept asking me. A little, I said.