Woofing
Saturday morning, I left the hostel where I was since three weeks to go to another host, where I also planned to work for accommodation.
While the previous one (hostel) was in the city of Wellington, the new host is a family's house situated in the hills of the Hutt Valley.
First impression
My hosts went to take me at the nearest train station. After a fifteen minutes car trip, across wonderful hills covered by trees, we arrived at their place.
Working for accommodation 2.0
I have to work here four hours per day, each day of the week as a total of twenty-eight hours per week, which is ten more hours than my previous job. But this time, accommodation is more complete.
What do I have now that I did not in the hostel ?
- free access to food (vegetarian and organic)
- free access to laundry
- free internet
- a clean duvet cover
- a single person room
What is missing compared to the previous job ?
- I am far from Wellington city. So I will not visit flats or have job interviews.
- The need to struggle with the hostel customer to prepare a meal.
« Hostel like the one I was in are the ones which will make woofing illegal. »
Okay, having somewhere to sleep in exchange of eighteen hours work per week is great when you just arrived in the country, have nowhere to go and barely speak English, but think about this : do a place which employs more woofers than paid people have really a positive social impact ? Quid. about the quality of service ?
I use to criticize poor services with low cost employment, so I do not want to go back to the hostel again : I will have to seriously look for a flat.
Dragon Ball Z training
After three weeks of housekeeping, I am now a gardener, in a huge garden.
Since Saturday, I essentially take care of the trees : removing weeds around, feed them with minerals, fertilizer, compost and mulch. There are a lot of different kind of trees : almond, pine trees, mandarin, lemon, grape, guava, maple trees, apple, pears, raison, peach, cherry, etc. (I have not my list with me while writing this article, so I surely miss some of them).
My job, even if it longs only four hours, is quite physical. Especially because I have to carry all the tools and packages I need from a point of the garden which is not flat to another. Furthermore, I spent a lot of time ducked or bend, so I have to take care now of the way I raise and carry my stuff to avoid pain in the back.
Sharing moments
The family : a woman, a man and their son (which is a little younger than me), are really nice. There is another woofer staying in this house : a thirty-two years old Italian guy, who stayed two years in Australia before coming to New Zealand. For lunch and diner, we often cook and eat altogether, creating moments to chat and share experiences or stories about some subjects of conversation I like : global warming, environment, happiness, economy or politic.
I understand most of the conversations, but still feel dumb : fear of misunderstanding, lack of vocabulary, French acronyms, etc. But all the family members takes care of our English during our discussions, tries to help us finding words and having a good pronunciation or corrects us when necessary, which is quite useful for my learning.
There is another person living here that we can met some times, and a freelance baker (who is a friend of the family) using the kitchen as his workplace. All this people living here at full or part time makes this house a very lively and animated place, where we can live a lot of experiences.
Lifestyle
As in the previous post, a list about what I live and experience :
- Because we work in the morning, we are free to do whatever we want during the whole afternoon.
- Views on the green hills, covered by various king of trees.
- Walking on the street could be considered as an hiking tour with wonderful a view.
- We often play cards after diner.
- It is possible to do archery.
- I tasted a wonderfully sweet cider.
- By discovering the vegetarian way of eat, I improve my everyday cooking style.
- The Chai Spice tea is awesome, but I still have not tested their coffee.
- We prepared the Monday's diner with my fellow woofer. There were « crêpes » for desert, after the meditation time.
- Tonight, I will taste gnocchis home made by the italian woofer.
Meditation
I should have put this in the list just above, but this was a really interesting experience that I want to relate. Meditation is a good thing : I think it is important for everyone to take some time to wondering about ourselves, listening to our thoughts and give some time to our brain to rest.
They proposed me to participate at their meditation group on Monday at 7 pm when I arrived, it sounded like a good thing to experiment (for the reasons listed above), and a good occasion to test it, while I still have not found a way to motivate myself to do it alone.
So, Monday, just after diner, we were preparing for the mediation time when I learnt that it would be a one hour meditation. I started to freak out, really : cardiac rhythm fastening, stomach-ache, negatives thoughts, etc. I was really interesting to notice what my reaction was : fearing to being stuck with anxious thoughts during the mediation time, while the purpose is rather to detach ourselves about all this stress and need of success.
I overcame that, sat down and took deep breath, and give a try, expecting nothing else as a result than staying one hour in the same position. I will not try to convince you that this hour was not long, but it passed quickly than I expected. I would love to do that more often, but I keep thinking that « I have no time ». Stupid brain.