Let's be honest, World Challenge is annoying.

Yesterday the internet went out again. It just came back now, so I will do another double post.

Yesterday I went to the building site where some Scottish people from World Challenge were working. They were pretty lazy in all honesty. They only had to build 20 bricks and it took them about two hours. A local builder told me that we didn’t need any more bricks for the toilet and they were just making them to learn how. I eventually went over to help the Swazi builders who were doing actual work. When I got there, they said they had made the gaps in the wall too small for the door frame. Without a chisel, I had to use a trowel to cut down a two meter high brick wall. Michael marked the two gaps that needed to be widened from 79 to 87 centimeters wide. I was assigned to one, and one of the lazy Scotts to the other. I finished in about half an hour. My arm was tired, but it wasn’t too bad. I went to the other gap to see how the Scott was doing. He was less than a quarter of the way done, so I said I would help for a bit. He took off and my help consisted of cutting down the entire rest of the wall. He also cut the wall incredibly unevenly. At the top he cut it to 95 centimeters, and at the bottom it was 80. I had to redo the entire thing. One of the Scottish “volunteers” told me that I had an English accent—probably the most inaccurate thing I have ever been told. That night I informed Ben and Jess (the two English volunteers in my group) and they just broke out laughing.

I’m not going to lie; most of the World Challenge groups annoy me. There are some that are alright, but most just plain suck. They seem to be here for their own benefit, not to help people in need. They also have priority over the local builders for access to the tools, so it seems like they often slow down progress rather than speeding it up. I know I am no expert builder so I am sorry to rant, but they should not come to Africa to goof off.

Today the really lazy group left at noon. I helped the local builders lay bricks at the bottom of the mountain while Michael worked at the top. We made a lot of good progress today; about four or five new rows of brick.

When we got back, we went to Pick ‘n Pay to buy some candy which we used to play poker with. After that my roommates and I ranted about World Challenge. All in all it was a good evening.