April 6th 2009 - First Day On The Job

The realities of sleeping in the kitchen/living room/dining room came to me this morning as those who had to be up earlier than me for their placements woke me up as they prepared to leave. Katja was ill so only Sara and myself from our flat headed to the Ministry of Agriculture for our first day on task. There we met Soren, Louise Sk, Helene and Nadia and we were put in a pick up truck and taken to a farm for the first day of our conservation work.

The farm was a very simple place and we were given a very simple task, and so for three and a half hours we put soil in small plastic bags. The most difficult thing about it was the boredom, keeping mentally strong to just keep doing the job. For those of us just out of school or University, it wasn’t something that we were used to. But it was easier in the shade and we kept spirits up with singing, chatting and devising new fairytales – Soren had the best with ‘The Soilbagger and the Prince’.

To celebrate our first day on the job, Sara and I went for ice cream before heading back to the flat and finding out about everyone’s placements. In the afternoon Mia, Josefine and I headed to town for shopping, ice cream (I spent sooo much money on ice cream!) and more. Sara and Chrisine treated us to vegetarian lasagne for tea before we relaxed some more on the roof terrace.