The Rhythm of a New Locale.
Bakersfield is an endless marathon. You can complain about your overall lack of oxygen, or you can make your way to the sidelines where someone is waiting to give you a waterbottle. There have been few waterbottles, there's an occasional hippy hiding in the shadows, and there's actually a few I work with which I've been unable to talk to mainly because both our tasks put us out in the field. However, I've been making slow connections and I'm excited to think maybe I can play some music or get gardening.
For now, what keeps me going is the gasoline station interactions. I must admit, I would rarely visit a gas station when I lived in Davis, filling up every 2-3 months, but during my westside week in bakersfield, I'm required to fill up my gas murdering work truck every morning. I burn through roughly 16 gallons daily with my witnessing activities, which suggest to me that I could possibly be worse for the environment simply by verifying the contractor actions (or at least I thought so until I sighted my first undocumented oil spill on the 2nd day out there).
Anyways, here goes. Once on the 46 and 5 junction, I stop to get an energy drink. I tell him I've got alot of driving, and he says, "you indian?" as if it's a standard greeting like "hello" or "get out of my way is". I respond, yes, sort of, malaysian indian, and he goes crazy. We talk a bit about where I am from, and Punjab, which is where he is from, and it;s like I won the lottery. Which I actually did. He immediately offered me free coffee in the store, which I gladly took for my drive. I guess it can get lonely out there, just like I'm searching for other hippies, he's searching for anything that reminds him of home.
This is not always this pleasant of an interaction. Take another morning when I'm on stockdale and 5 junction, which everybody and their mom knows not to buy gas there, as it's like a dollar more on a good day. I don't care, my card is state money, so you'll be paying for my mistake, but today it's not like that, I'm stopping for red bull and some coffee - coffee that is cold, sugary, and condensed milky, tastes just like malaysian coffee. I bring it to register and the guy there, who's known for being friendly, especially with Nancy, asks me 20 questions. He's not indian, he's from Saudi Arabia, and I calmly think to myself this guy is ballsy for living in oil country. The hicks that live up the street must be plotting a tar and feather session as we speak... But not to be outdone, he's making it aware to me that his country is even more chauvantistic than oil america is. He starts describing the quality of malaysian women to me, and how their pretty faces and bodies will serve me well into my old age. Thank you sir! Good information to write down in my log book then burn.
Women here are treated pretty different. Immigrants as well. It's treated very much like "you are lucky to be out here in the field, where we have work". This couldn't be more obvious once when I went out to a station way out there on 46 and 33. The poor mexican girl that worked there look like she could live and/or die on the whims of her old white taskmaster of a boss, who guarded his station like a gargoyle, waiting for his maiden to mistakely coerce someone into leaving a penny in the jar. Part of my felt terrible, but a simple lesson out here is to save your sympathy, your own day is going to be killer and take your energy to the limit.
Speaking of energy, those energy drinks that you keep away from children and your fishtanks is pure currency out here. I found myself longing for one each day during my 12-18 hour shift. I heard contractors talk about it in hushed tones, trading "yellows" for "light blues" [referencing the color of the M on the monster cans], and "light blues" for "greens". Where do I live? I've never been so tired and unable to put up an emotional fight. Somehow I drove through this week and into the weekend with Anco and Carlos.
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