Le parpaing

Plusieurs personnes m'ont demandé de partager le commentaire posté sur le site HelpX, suite à mon passage dans la ferme "à problèmes" de Childers. Le voici dans son intégralité. Je le laisse en anglais, puisque de toutes façons il reprend essentiellement ce que j'ai pu écrire dans mon billet précédent. Bonne lecture !

RIGHT, where can I start? I have a lot of things to tell here...

What I am about to say, I couldn't tell it in front of the host, it was too big for me. But I'm not afraid to tell everything on this HelpX comment. I'm not doing this for me, but for the next woofer applicants.

I am someone who like a lot woofing, I love farming, I've done that for a while in Australia and in the US. I have a bit of experience about that, so I can tell what is going on here.

Last Tuesday, I arrived in this farm. I quickly realised that I've been very lucky in the farms I've been before. These ones were good, very good, and sometimes amazing. Always a good experience in all of them, with nice people, funny children, open-minded farmers, interesting work, fare jobs, a lot of good memories, etc.

If I applied in this farm, it was not to get some of the 88 days necessary to apply for the second WHV (I do have the 88 days already). I applied for two other reasons: first of all, it's in Queensland, where I wanted to go at that time of my journey. Second of all, I like farming and try to make the hosts satisfied about my job. So I was thinking: it's gonna be great, I am going to meet different people again, have a great experience, see the sun of Queensland, etc., yihaaaa !!... BUT...

... FIRST OF ALL, I am sure this family can be quite nice with some woofers, I have no doubt about that. But it seems that everyone is not equal: a Korean guy was staying at the place and was hated by the family. I didn't know them yet that I was feeling really sorry for this guy. Despite of his lack of language, he tried to do his best he could, all the time, a very courageous person, trying to get better and well considered. I have to admit that he was sometimes doing an very efficient work. The family was sometimes telling him : "you don't remember anything of what we tell you", "you are useless" "what are you gonna do with your life ?!".
We all are human beings, right? I reckon that little tiny mistakes can be done by anyone, and be forgiven easily, don't you think? Well, it seems that here, we are not allowed to make any, and especially him. The more this guy was trying, the worse it went for him. When you have someone who yell at you like if you were some kind of unhealthy livestock, you get stressed, make more mistakes, and understand less and less what is going on around you... It seemed to be horrible for him, and unfortunately we couldn't do almost anything for him, except trying to defend him, even if at the end we'll be unconsidered ourselves.

Every Wednesday, you're gonna go shopping (if you want to) with Rebekah... The time I went, I stayed 2 hours in front of Woolies waiting for her. No text message, no excuse for her 2 hours late... Maybe I am wrong but I reckon it is disrespectful. It seems to be normal for them.
Besides, they don't even try to remember our names: after 1 week, one the helper was still called "the girl", and after 2 days I was still called sometimes "the guy I don't know the name". After a while, it's absolutely not funny anymore, David !

In the family, they yell at each-other all the time. Rebekah is a freaking woman, she gets angry for anything: big deals, little deals, and even when nothing is wrong... It's unbelievable. I didn't know that such people could exist on Earth.
Have you seen on their ad that they are Christian? Oh, come on, please don't tell us that!! Where is your tolerance, your polite attitude, and your sense of respect?! It seems that you didn't find it in your church on the Saturdays (Only day off of the week, and you're not allowed to do anything in the house this day: no TV, no cooking, no washing. Yes it's unbelievable). I am catholic, and I feel really shocked by this people who pretend to be Christian... They might feel Christian when they celebrate their Shabbat, but they are not Christian in their acts. You don't have the right to make fun of people sarcastically in front of them, it's inhuman, even more when they don't understand you very well. I have a limit at my forgiveness. This has gone too far. I call this now harassment. I am leaving this place.

WOOFER, HELPER, please stay away from these people!
I've seen how they act with other woofers, trust me, they are really hypocrites and psychos. They are not good hosts at all.
They're going to ask you to work between 5 and 6 hours a day, and 6 days a week, for free. And then, once your work on the farm is done, you have to clean the house sometimes, and prepare the dinner, do the dishes, make the kitchen clean every night > And if you don't do it correctly, you can be in trouble (I have seen it). Are we in real-life, seriously, helping for 7 or 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, feeling like in hell?? You gotta be kidding!

AND, about the money they talk about in their ad, which they can give you if you're a willing worker is not true at all!! Some helpers will get $500 for two months, others won't get any cent, even if they did a really good job. I've heard that some people stayed for a while in this farm, like two months, they were doing really well, got along well with the family, and did not get any penny at the end of their journey. They were shocked the day they left when they discovered that they wouldn't have nothing.
So, don't think that they're gonna give you anything if you work well enough, actually it's never enough.

DON'T APPLY. If you have the same experience than me, please write something, after a few comments like that, they're going to be fired from the website.

Cheers,
an Australia lover.

Free bird - Lynyrd Skynyrd