Joventino
Today is Wednesday and it’s the week that Joventino has come to work in my garden. Joventino arrives at 7am like clockwork and never leaves before 5pm. He puts in a very full day and is constantly moving, working for what amounts to about 9+ hours. I know for a fact that he does this six days a week. His going rate is $180 in cash per day, which is crazy. He comes in his own truck and brings many of his own tools as well as his own lunch. If you get a day laborer at Home Depot you have to transport him from and to Home Depot and provide him with lunch at a cost of $20/hour, which for a ten hour day would be $200 (since you are expected to pay them for the lunch hour). I have no problem with this day laborer arrangement, but I do have a problem with Joventino’s pay. I have come into the habit of paying him $260 for the day. I’m not sure why that exact amount, but that is where I am. Joventino started trying to say it was too much, but I insisted and now he just accepts that is why I pay him. I have tried to tell him to leave at 5pm many times, but he refuses to leave until he is done, no matter the time.
I’m not sure what others pay Joventino, but I suspect I pay him more. That makes me think that I have somehow assured myself of availability of his services since he makes more when he works for me. I have no way of knowing whether Joventino “likes” working on one property versus another. Joventino is a man of few words and those that he has are strictly Spanish. I consider my “Gardener Spanish” to be quite good and he and I communicate quite well, but I have never nor do I ever expect to plumb the depths of his soul. So, assuming he has nothing against working on my property, I figure he should want to be here working for a higher hourly rate than anywhere else. But whenever I suggest him coming more frequently, Joventino demurs and says that coming once every three weeks is about right for what I need doing. If I didn’t know better I would think he is in cahoots with the universe to make sure that I get my adequate quotient of outdoor exercise in between his visits.
Gradually, I am taking on more and more of the gardening tasks myself. Normally, I would set out pots of new plants where I want him to plant them and leave that task for him to accomplish. But this spring, I have probably planted more new plants myself than not. That goes for all the new pots I have bought and placed around the garden here and there and planting trees and pots into the ground as well. It really isn’t that hard, but I assure you that it takes me twice as long as it would take Joventino and every time I do it I have newfound respect for what a working machine Joventino is. He can do in 9 hours what I can do in a week, given the amount of time I spend taking breaks and sitting to admire all my hard work. I have never actually seen Joventino sitting down, just like I have never seen him eat or drink. I know he eats lunch some time since he brings a cooler which he leaves somewhere in a shady spot and I have seen a few empty water bottles at the end of the day, so I know he must drink now and then.
I have also never seen Joventino not smile or at least look calm and at peace. He seems to enjoy telling me when he has found and killed a rattlesnake, which he did just yesterday under the large propane tank in the front of the property. I can’t tell if he likes telling me because he is proud that he can conquer this beast of the garden or if he somehow thinks I get vicarious pleasure in knowing that he has rid my garden of one more danger for me and my family. I continue to think that on any given day I stomp past two or three snakes in the undergrowth without even knowing it. I have literally never encountered one in the field and only ever seen them out in the open, particularly when it is sunny and they are basking in their glory on the pavement. I am really not sure what I would do if I was ankle-deep in the brush and I heard a rattle or a slither. I’m sure it would freak me out. I am equally sure that Joventino encounters one like that almost every day, and yet he carries on as though it were simply a normal fact of life.
The other things that Joventino does every time he visits is trim and prune bushes, weed amongst the rock gardens and in the mulch, use the string trimmer on the open grassy areas, and use the blower to clear off all the pathways of debris. I can and do all of those things myself during a normal week. I have just about every tool needed for trimming and pruning. I have handheld and extendable curved saws for pruning larger branches. I have electric trimmers for whacking down things like overgrown fountain grasses and expanding lantana shrubs. Just this week I have purchased a J-shaped sickle/scythe/blade that I saw another gardener use to great effect for shaping and trimming bushes. I have an electric string trimmer and an electric blower (two actually) that use rechargeable batteries. I have both a “wiggle” or stirrup hoe for weeding and what Garret Wade calls a “Grandpa” weeder that allows you to pluck out big weeds by the roots without bending down to do so. In other words, I am fully equipped to do Joventino’s job myself with only one exception. I simply do not have the man’s stamina. I could try to claim that I am older by some fifteen or twenty years, but I know better. I know Joventino’s father, Benito, and he can work as hard or harder than Joventino and he has a few years on me. There is no getting around the fact that doing what Joventino does every day, six days a week, makes you as strong as any man I know. He is a gardening machine and I am but a mere dilettante in the garden by comparison.
By my reckoning, Joventino earns about an average of $1,200 per week in cash, which is to say that his pre-tax equivalent is something like $70,000 per year. Assuming that his wife earns another $30,000 doing housecleaning or some such thing, his family has a decent income to make a nice American Dream life for themselves. But he does that with a constant flow of hard work and determination. He is a model citizen from what I can see and our country is made stronger by virtue of having the Joventino’s that we have here. As I have said before, I have no idea of his immigration or citizenship status and I don’t really care. He is a human being and a fine one at that. I wish he were more conversant about his family and home life since I would love to hear about how his children are faring. I would hope that they have gotten good educations and have moved on from gardening to some higher purpose, but that is unclear. Like I said, Joventino has chosen to follow the exact same path as his father Benito, so it would not shock me to see that Joventino’s sons may have done the same.
When I have Omar (Handy Brad’s able assistant) over, he usually comes on a Saturday and brings his son Iker over with him. Omar speaks far more English than Joventino and Iker is either a naturalized American or at least a Dreamer. He is ten years old and has that slightly chubby body type of the typical American male youth that doesn’t get enough exercise. He usually has his iPhone with him and spends his time playing video games. I occasionally try giving Iker a physical task, which he will do because I have accustomed him to paying him $20 when he accompanies his father for the day. Omar is as hard a worker as Joventino, but Iker is on a very different path than either of them. I appreciate the good aspects of Americanization and education, but there is still something about Joventino, working away alone on the back hillside hour after hour without complaint or break that wins a bigger share of my admiration.