Wwoofing in Ireland, part 1

From July, 5^th to August, 20^th 2011, I wwoofed in Bantry, Cork County, Ardnageehy Beg to be more precise.

My hosts were Paul and Albi, a couple living with their young children.

We were 4 wwoofers: 2 French (Baptiste and François) and an Italian (Paolo). Paul also had a gardener, Wilian, a really nice Cuban.

During my stay, I watered plants and vegetables inside the greenhouses or outside. I also made compost, took off the weeds and helped Paul selling products or the market.

I wasn’t feeling well in this farm because the wwoofers and I were under pressure. Paul often reprimanded us because, according to him, we were too slow. We had our weekends (either Friday and Saturday or Saturday and Sunday, depending which wwoofer was on the market) and had to work 6h a day. I was all distressed to see that we had to work right now, no time to unpack!

We lived in a quite dirty RV in which we couldn’t cook or have a shower. So we went to the house for that. It was forbidden to use the shower more than 4 days a week and couldn’t go to the restroom by night because the house was closed.

About food, it wasn’t really nice to hear. We ate sandwiches for each lunch and one of the wwoofers fell ill because of that. We cooked dinner by turns and sometimes, we ate without the family. We had our own fridge but it was often empty compared to the one that the family used. The only advantage was that Paul made us taste wine almost each night. However, he demanded bottle of wine to each new wwoofers!

Once François back home, a Spanish wwoofer, María, came. Unfortunately, she only stayed one night when she saw were she ended up!

Then, Baptiste went back to France. Paolo and I were the only wwoofers. We couldn’t stand that family anymore, so we phoned to another farm which decided to welcome us and Paul and Albi weren’t happy about it. Normally, I was supposed to stay until July, 31^st and Paolo until September.

Many months later, Wilian with whom I keep in touch, told me that Paul and Albi don’t welcome wwoofers anymore and I think that’s because a lot of people complained about them. Indeed, when I wrote a comment on the wwoof website, the administrator told me that I wasn’t the only one to complain!