Work Duty

Tonight we fulfilled the second part of our marina member duties by going over and working in the boat yard.  It was a cool night which proved to be helpful because the work we had to do was real work.  Last year, when we arrived for our arbets plikt (work duty) evening, there was practically no work to be done.  We screwed down a couple of loose boards, swept the floor and made hot dogs and coffee.  This year was a totally different story.  One of our fears is that we won't be able to understand what job they are giving us so when the guy said he needed several people to help GRÄVA, I said to Doug, "Let's do that...it means dig and I know we know how do that!" Why in the world I know the word for dig, is a mystery to me.  It was a pretty tough job.  We had to dig a pretty good size ditch, then cover the bottom with sand. Doug is a great yard worker.  I'm not.  My upper body strength is staggeringly poor and after about 5 shovel fulls, I was beat.  My wrists, hands and back were aching!  I was so thankful for my day job!  But I hung in there and working together made it much easier.  After we finished the ditch, we moved on to moving big trash into a dumpster and picking up loose tree cuttings.  Icky, dirty work.  Finally, we topped off the evening by helping to move the trunk and branches of a huge birch tree that they felled right as we arrived.  That sucker was heavy and the branches seemed to go on endlessly. And no, they do not say Timber when a tree is coming down.
You can pay money to get out of doing the work but we kind of feel like this is one of the ways we can be a physical presence at the boat yard.  We don't know other people there very well and besides, if you pay money, the work doesn't get done and the boat yard looked 100% better when we left than when we arrived. Lots of people put loads and loads of time into the marina to keep it as nice as is it.  It's good for us to hang with the crowd once in awhile.  Swedes are great outdoor workers so everyone is good about doing their bit.  And it was only 2 hours. And we got hot dogs and cinnamon rolls when it ended.