I ’m lying in a clean bed. There are two triple bunks in the room; six beds. I try to sleep, but it’s quite warm, and through the wall next to my head there is a huge TV blaring in Polish, which no one is watching but is probably never turned off.
Still, now I’m finally here, a lot of stress has lifted. Earlier I reached the farm after a long train journey and a lift from the station. I was greeted by the boss, Edyta, whose husband, Marcus, owns the farm.
Edyta took my heavy suitcase – full of food – and carried it upstairs to the living quarters, under the roof of a large barn. The decision that a farm would be one of my destinations was not difficult. The food industry in Europe would probably collapse without migrant labour.
I had searched for jobs on a Polish website because Poles go in huge numbers to Germany for work. I replied to an ad and from the follow-up phone calls, I learned that I would be working seven days a week, that they guaranteed work for at least 10 hours a day and that I would be paid €6.20 (£5.
27) an hour. I would have to pay the agency a fee of €200 and a one-off sum of €105 for my bed. I would buy and cook my own food.
They also told me to bring boots and rubber gloves. The morning after I arrive, my roommate, Danka, in her 60s, takes me to a big packing shed, where about 30 women are already at work. They stand by conveyor belts, sorting salad vegetables that go into machines to be wrapped.
I’m given the task of halving peeled yel.