Time is just flying by, holy cow.
So that same day I made some posts last week, i had a fascinating encounter with a Brisbane local. I'm making my way back to the hostel for lunch and I'm waiting at the crosswalk minding my own business. I suppose i must have looked like a tourist, because this random guy comes up and tells me to "go back to your own country", needless to say I'm shocked and I look at him wondering if he's talking to me, which He says "yeah you heard me". I'm kinda stunned into silence for a moment, I've heard racism can bad down here but this was simply ridiculous. I really felt like making a snarky comment asking him if he was a native or not, but i feel it would have caused a fight. There really wasn't any point though, since it likely would have just made him that much more bitter. Apparently his opinion is quite rare however, so i'm not letting it spoil anything. We have just as many crazy people back home anyway.
The day after was supposed to have been the start of some pepper picking work, but that was a huge let down.
I make my way to a little town called Gatton with Luke and Lucy, a pair of Brits I met in Brisbane. Luke has been in contact with what we believed to be a farm and that they would have work for us within a few days. Every impression indicated that we'd roll up and have work for any day that wasn't raining. We get there and it seems like a nice enough town, we get to the house where we were to stay. Before we have a chance to look around or talk to the other people staying there, our host ask us if we want a ride to the grocery store since they need to be away for the rest of the evening and the store closes early. Assuming everything is OK we go to the grocery store and between the 3 of us we lay down $300 for groceries for the next few weeks. As soon as we get back we get given our contract, at this point everything becomes very clear.
The people that the Brits were in contact with are apparently a middle agency that owns 14 houses in the area, and each house takes up to 9 people each. They take a $100 deposit and then collect weekly rent($100) and transportation fees ($7/day) and in return they'll contact farmers and contract out workers on a as-needed basis. The work is far from guaranteed since this is the wet season, and you can't pick fruit or veggies in the rain. After talking it over a bit and speaking to one of the other guys in the house, who hasn't had any work in 2 weeks, we decide to just pack up as much food as we can carry and book it back to the bus. I feel like its important to note that it was a 35 degree day and the bus station was a 40 minute walk away. Live and learn for all of us I guess. Luke and Lucy learned to ask more direct questions, and I learned not to rely on people I just met to ask those kinds of questions. All in all a good story.
