Who wants to be here? Zach?

I don’t think that I regret anything in my life as much as I regret coming to South Africa. What an ugly country, and what terrible people. Everyone here tries so hard to be friendly and hospitable; it makes me sick. Doesn’t anyone here have anything better to do than to sit around and be nice to people? What a bunch of lazy people. And I haven’t even mentioned my team at Scripture Union, whom I was unfortunately forced to work with. I have yet to meet a person as boring or as lacking passion as my field worker, Sedrico. The guy is like a taskmaster, and yet, you can hardly get the guy to say a word. And then there are my fellow trendsetters, Marc and Cleo. Marc is angry pretty much all the time, and has absolutely no patience. I made a joke about him one, and he hit me right in the face. He is so terrible with kids that I have no idea what he is doing here. And Cleo is just hopeless. She literally is good at nothing, and just sits around the office and complains all the time. I can’t wait to get out of here.

I thought that when we finally started running holiday clubs my life would get better, but man was I wrong. In fact, life probably got worse. First, I was amazed at all of the leaders I met, most of which were very young. For some reason, they took their own holiday breaks to serve children. Talk about your messed up priorities! I couldn’t believe how many people would drop everything and selflessly serve the Lord. Am I the only one who finds this crazy? And to make it worse, they all acted incredibly rude towards me. I can’t believe they could even call themselves Christians, with them constantly talking to me, and acting so friendly. Quite disgusting behaviour, really. And the kids were even worse. I don’t know what they feed the kids down here, but they were like little animals. I couldn’t get them to stop saying hello to me or giving me hugs. Who do they think I am, a walking teddy bear? And just to annoy me, they would all be quiet and participate in the activities. What terrible little rascals. And when I was walking around the neighbourhoods, they would yell out my name and wave at me. They really need a lesson in how to be polite. I couldn’t wait to leave them.

Well, that’s pretty much all that I can complain about right now, but check back with me in a few hours and I will have found a few more things. Actually, you are probably pretty friendly so don’t bother me. And I will most likely check in again soon, if I don’t starve to death by then. I didn’t even mention how awful the food is here.

Hopefully you have taken my advice and haven’t taken anything that I have said seriously. Actually, hopefully you have taken the opposite from pretty much everything that I have said. I thank God for this experience and for all these awesome people. If I had to honestly sum up my time in South Africa, I could do it in only one word: blessed.

Zach Castle