I spent nearly eight months there with an overseas engineering team, and I personally witnessed so many unbelievable things that most people wouldn't dare believe if I told them. Our camp was set up on a wide open grassland. When we first arrived, to solve the water issue, the team found a water diviner who picked a spot at random to drill a well. At less than 12 meters deep, we hit clear water—sweet-tasting stuff. It was enough not just for our 40-plus team members to drink, bathe, and cook with, but we even channeled some out to irrigate the little vegetable patch we'd cleared, watering it every day and still never running out.

Less than two kilometers from our camp, there was a tribal village with over a hundred people. The first time I went there with the procurement guy, I saw the whole village gathered around a half-meter-deep mud pit scooping water. The water was so murky it wouldn't settle even after half an hour, with bugs and animal dung floating on the surface. Kids would just squat down and drink straight from it when they were thirsty, and the adults didn't care. Plenty of kids got diarrhea every few days; without medicine, it dragged on into serious illnesses. It was heartbreaking to see. Right then, I asked the translator: We've got so much water from our well here—why don't they drill one? The translator just chuckled and said, "You'll see soon enough. It's not about the water."

Not long after, when the project slowed down, the team leader said we had the equipment and manpower anyway—why not drill a well for them for free? Call it a good deed. But we hit a snag right from the first step. The village chief showed up with a crowd and blocked the spot we'd chosen for the well, saying it was the tribe's communal land. If we wanted to drill, we'd have to give them ten bags of flour, five barrels of cooking oil, and two crates of soda—or no digging. The team figured it wasn't much anyway, so we handed it over. Consider it the cost of a well for the village; that stuff was nothing to us.

Next, we needed a few locals to help out with the grunt work and hauling. We offered a pound of cornmeal and two bottles of soda per day—enough in those parts to feed a family of three comfortably, way more than they made wandering around aimlessly. Five guys showed up, but after less than 40 minutes of work, they all dropped their tools and plopped under a tree for shade. Said the sun was too hot and would burn their skin; ancestors' rules meant no work at high noon—wait till sunset. We figured, when in Rome, so we waited. But after sunset? Not a soul in sight. The next morning, three finally straggled in, but they demanded the soda and cornmeal upfront or no dice. We gave it to them, and the three of them poked around digging less than half a meter before sitting down to chat and rest—for the whole morning. By the third day, none showed up at all; they sent word via a messenger that the food they'd gotten would last them several days of eating and drinking, so they'd head home to rest and come back once it ran out.

In the end, with no other choice, our engineering team did it ourselves. In under ten days, we had a steady-flowing well drilled, and we even installed a simple pulley rig at the top with two big wooden buckets. We told the village chief: From now on, anyone can come draw water—just don't toss garbage in. At first, the villagers were thrilled, lining up every day to fetch it. But not even half a month later, the well was clogged. We went to check: branches, rocks, rotten leaves—half the well was jammed up. Turns out, after drawing water, people just chucked their trash right by the edge, and the rain washed it all in. We cleared it out for free and repeatedly told the chief and villagers: No throwing garbage, keep the well mouth clean. But less than two months later, it clogged again. After that, the chief just came to us and said the well was broken—drill us a new one. Said it like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we were supposed to clean up their messes every day.

I ran into something similar once before. A section of the camp's perimeter wall had collapsed, so we hired four local workers to fix it, agreeing to pay them the full wage once the day's work was done. The four started at 8 a.m., broke for tea at 9, ate breakfast at 10, napped till 3 p.m., worked less than an hour, then said they had to go home to feed the kids. By day's end, they'd laid fewer than five bricks. The next day, they showed up demanding full pay, claiming we hadn't provided tea and bread, so they'd gone slow—and we couldn't short them. It pissed off our team leader so much he chased them off on the spot.

The longer I stayed, the more I realized this wasn't some isolated thing. There was this young guy in his twenties who came to camp every day selling wild fruit. He seemed pretty sharp, so we told him: Why not deliver veggies to us daily? We'd pay him a fixed monthly wage—way steadier than hawking fruit. He worked three days, then vanished on the fourth. A week later, he wandered back. Asked why he quit, he said the money from those three days was enough to live on; he'd stayed home spending it and would return once it was gone. And there were international aid groups handing out free vegetable seeds, teaching them to clear land and plant—saying a good harvest would feed the whole village for over half a year. Half the seeds got boiled and eaten; the rest were tossed haphazardly into the soil, no watering, no weeding. When nothing grew, they just waited for the next handout.

Really, so many people say Africa's poverty comes from bad climate or historical baggage. But we're talking clear water right underfoot at 10-some meters deep—enough to supply a whole village for decades. Someone drills it for free, and all it takes is basic upkeep, but they can't even manage that. It's not that they lack strength; they can forage for wild fruit or dance around a bonfire all day. But mention work for a meal, and they're wiped out after half an hour. It's not that resources are missing—groundwater's there, aid's there—they just won't lift a finger.

In my eight months, I saw tons of abandoned aid wells, all junked out in under two years from zero maintenance. Locals would rather hike three or four kilometers with a bucket for filthy rainwater than spend half a day clearing a clogged well mouth. So, is this some millennia-old "trust in the heavens" mindset that's just bone-deep and unchangeable, or is it really "laziness" that's kept them trapped in poverty? What do you think about this?

https://x.com/kongkongda5588/status/2109922276569477181

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5912994&forum_id=2...id#50190960)

Weibo account: Cultivator in deep mountains and secluded valleys. QQ3957228940"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5912994&forum_id=2...id#50191027)

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5912994&forum_id=2...id#50191028)