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How I remember it, with some writer's licence. Photos mostly plagiarised from the net.
The best job was with the future Dolphin Reef Beach Resort, which was just being built. The owner took us there first, gave us breakfast, and showed us around. When he could be bothered to get us working, he drove us north for over an hour to a pile of dried palm branches. We worked hard loading the scratchy branches into the van, and eventually carrying them to the pier at the resort, where they were to make a roof. He took us for lunch at the bus station cafe and paid us a hundred shekels each. We were on the job over twelve hours, working for about four of those. If he’d picked up more workers later in the day and paid them the same, as in the parable, I thought I wouldn’t have minded.
Next was landscape gardening (mainly moving sand around) with two older Arabs. Laughing at how I drank water from my bottle, they showed me how to pour it down their throats without it touching their lips, and so share it hygienically. I’ve done that ever since.
At the Peace Cafe in the afternoons, I listened as old hands talked about what work they would and wouldn’t accept. Young Arabs dreamed of going to America, where the streets are paved with gold. People bought plastic sandals, which seemed absurdly uncomfortable in the heat, though I clung on to my sweaty trainers. I suspected the landlord was getting tired of my taking my backpack in and out of his cage and generally using his facilities, without buying drinks or contributing significantly to the social ambience.
To my surprise, Eli hired me back when I turned up at the bakery. This time he took me out on deliveries.
I have since noticed that shops which sell fresh bread have a cabinet outside. Eli drove round and opened the cabinets with a universal key, and I loaded them with bread. After a while he would drop me off with a crate of bread and instructions which loaves to put in each cabinet.
Delivering bread was a task less affected, for the non-driver, by microsleeps. Eli kept me on it, pairing me with another driver on the next two shifts. The driver asked me my name.
- You’re David. I’m Moses, said Moshe. Moses, Eli, David. None of us looked like a biblical patriarch, though Eli with his pointed beard and Lenin cap came closest.
I collected my visa for Egypt, one of the best looking I’ve ever had, coloured with postage stamps. The consulate was friendly and full of backpackers.
Click for Part V.
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