Last night, I met the McPoylesWell, well, well. I'm on a farm to the west of Buenos Aires and there are a few things happening here which I imagine are of little interest to anyone, last night I was introduced to the “Twelve Tribes” religion. I realise that this description might seem offensive, but I'll try to keep it to objective observations only. I really wasn't sure what to expect. I heard there was a lot of dancing and no drinking, but great food. As we (four other workawayers split in to two couples and Mark, the erratic/paranoid/insane guy running the show) walked up towards the building I was surprised by how nice it was, considering it is in a fairly shitty area. As soon I passed through the doorway I felt like I was transported to the world of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There in front of me was the entire family group of the McPoyles. Monobrows. Hair tied back. Grey headbands. Fairly uniformly dressed, in a style you might expect to see in southern US sixty years ago. OK, so I came back to finish this and it sounds like a slightly uncool kid picking on a super uncool kid at school. The end of the story is basically that they mostly have a great outlook on how people should behave, being generous and kind and helping people out, they danced A LOT and were really welcoming, but it was super weird that they are working towards God returning to earth in 55 years so they need to prepare for him. Also they are racist AF, dividing people in to white, black and yellow. Apparently black people loved to serve. I found out about this the following morning which was probably for the best. RewindFrom El Chalten I caught a bus back to El Calafate, couchsurfed a night with a rad overworked dude who told me the WiFi passwords for the airport and gave me essential tips for my movement to the farm. I told him how my workaway host said to get to his place and as I revealed each new part of the plan he laughed ever more drily and finally confirmed that there is no way I should be in those places at night (flight landed 1910). Thanks new workaway host. I found a place to couchsurf in BA and the next day got to the farm. Mark, the host, wasn't to be seen all day because he was hungover from the night before. Not the best first impression. Especially because everyone was telling me about how much of a dick he is and how he was calling them all ignorant idiots when he was drunk. He didn't sound like the kind of guy it's nice to hang out with. Eventually I met him and he's the kind of guy that buys in to every conspiracy theory there is, preaches what he perceives as the truth and anyone who thinks different is an idiot (sound familiar?) and he only a weak grip on reality (often seemed to forget entire days, maybe it could be all the weed you smoke mate). The work generally has been building a storm protection system for parts of the garden, making concrete for the foundation for the new house, building an adobe fireplace and general gardening. Mark is hard to deal with because he'll say one thing and do another and he'll try to join in on what we are doing perfectly well and changing it to be his way until eventually he sees it won't work and he goes back to what we were doing initially as if it was his original idea. He uses flowery language to impress and confuse people, but doesn't seem to know what the words mean and has no real logical thought. That said, a lot of what he said about certain governments being corrupt and counterproductive resonated with me, he always wanted to pick a fight and find something that I thought that was counter to his narrative so he could tell me how wrong I am. For instance he believes that we are devolving from a higher species rather than evolving. Trying to have a logical conversation with someone who can accept that as a legitimate point of view is not possible. You can read my workaway review here (if I remember to come back and put the link in). One brief example of him not actually understanding what he says, is him trying to show that evolution is made up by saying that "first law of thermodynamics, you can't get something from nothing". He then went on to say this shows that you can't get life from nowhere. I exploded in to a rant, overusing the term "ludicrous" as I am want to do, about the fact that life isn't special and everything we are made of is exactly the same as what a rock or the sea is made of, when you take it to the most elementary particles we are aware of. He accepted this, which was obviously a mistake (all he wanted to do was win the argument, he'd never change his opinion, so he should have at least flat out said I was wrong), and then went on to his next point. This acceptance shows he knows that doesn't know what he's on about. The language he uses is seriously impressive though. The redeeming factor here of course, was the company of some of the other workawayers. There was a French couple travelling in a van with their dog, Hyuki who were lots of fun. Aud, the female of the male-female relationship was one of the hardest working people I've worked with. I taught her and Martin some cricket which they weirdly seemed to enjoy. I'm sure they were just pretending. Bernie and Mary, an Irish couple who stayed for five weeks were funny and fun too. If they hadn't stayed as long as they did, I probably would have endeavoured to leave earlier. Now I'm in Buenos Aires until Sunday when I'll catch a bus to Cardona in Uruguay to work on an actual farm near there. There are sheep and cattle, but most importantly horses. For the unenlightened, horses are the most intelligent, most evil animals on the planet, and I think I'll be using them for transport.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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