Page 47 - Kol Bogrei Habonim - Winter 20

A SATISFYING JOB FOR A framework were a number of hooks to which
KIBBUTZ VOLUNTEER
DAVID CHESTER
I previously described my
have
experiences at working in a banana
plantation of Beit-HaEmek (see “Going
Bananas” in KVH Vol. 5 No. 1). But during
the short time I was there as a volunteer, I
became a broadcaster, too. No, it was not on
the radio, nor on TV, but in a much more
practical sense.
For one working session, I was introduced to
a kibbutznik called Nachum (if my memory
serves), who was responsible for growing the
silage being used for feeding the cows in the
refet (dairy). He took me to a store, where
sacks of grain were kept. The floor was of
smooth flat concrete. Nachum explained:
“What you have to do is to empty out these
sacks onto the floor. Then, with a shovel, you
should mix together these two kinds of
grain.”
He added: “Then, you can refill each sack
with the mixture using this machine to hold
open the mouth of each sack.”
As a well-qualified engineer, I knew there
was something wrong with this term, because
the “machine” was actually an open structure
of welded iron rods, having the form of a
truncated cone. Around the top circle of this
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each sack could be temporally attached, so
that it was held open, saving the need for a
second worker to assist. Strictly this device
was not a machine at all, because there were
no moving parts, but I got the idea and set to
work, while Nachum went off on another job.
I carefully performed this activity in
anticipation of the subsequent work of
sowing the seed on a recently ploughed and
harrowed field. We soon reached there by
tractor, along with two of the sacks. Nachum
then introduced me to a kind of curved metal
trough with straps to hold it in place. This
device (not a machine this time), enabled one
item fitting closely around one’s belly. This
to take two handfuls of the grain and literally
broadcast them, by throwing them crosswise
to each side in turn, as one walked to-and-fro
along the furrows of the field.
This seemed to me to be a rather old-
fashioned way of sowing grain, more suitable
for the skilled farm workers of a bygone era,
rather than us, modern kibbutz-based
agriculturalists and their untrained helpers.
How was Nachum to know that the results of
my labour would result in a uniform
distribution of the grains and their being
scattered in sufficient amounts? There was no
discussion about these problems, I was
completely trusted to get it right, and once
again, I was left on my own, this time to
distribute the contents of these two sacks over
the field.
It was pleasant but hot and tiring work, and I
spent some thought and energy in the
broadcasting process, trying to get these two
aspects of the job properly performed – one
of my throwing-arms not yet having fully