Welcome to WWOOFing

You hear about a lot of different ways to work, volunteer or save money while travellling, but one thing that we'd both heard of and Kurt had wanted to do for years, was WWOOFing.  It's a worldwide organisation, but is operated separately in each country - you simply register and pay a small fee for whatever country you want to do it in, and you receive a registration number and contact details for all the farms listed in that country.  We decided to try our first experience in Argentina, so when we were down in Patagonia we applied for a few farms that interested us in the Buenos Aires area, as that's where we were heading next.  Of the three we contacted we got two replies - one had no availability when we wanted, but the second was happy to take us.  The farm was called "La Farfalla" ("The Butterfly" in Italian) and it interested us because it said they were an organic farm with sheep, chickens, a pig and bees, and they were also building a house out of natural materials.  So, after a few days in Buenos Aires we headed out to the farm.

"La Farfalla" is just outside a little town called Canuelas, a couple of hours southwest of BA.  It's not far, but in order to get there we had to navigate our way via subway, train, local bus then a short walk.  Thankfully their directions were good so we had no problems.  We arrived at about midday and they were just serving up lunch so we had our first taste of macrobiotic food, which is what we lived on while we were there.  Neither of us had any idea what to expect, but were both pleasantly surprised by the variety and flavours of the food they cooked for us.  After being introduced to the people who lived there - Matias, Mariana and Juan Pablo, plus Barbara, an English WWOOFer who was leaving in a couple of days - we were shown around the farm and given a tent to set up for our accommodation.  

For the first few days we would generally work with one of them so they could show us how things were done.  Keryn also worked for a day with Barbara on building a wall in the new house, and it was the highlight of the whole experience for her.  

The shit pit

I mean, who wouldn't enjoy shovelling sloppy horse shit to make natural cement (along with sand and straw) then slapping it on with your hands?  It's like being a kid again and making mud patties in the garden, but with actual shit.  Brilliant.  Unfortunately, that was the only day either of us got to do any natural building which was a big disappointment.  We were there for about 2 weeks and for the majority of the time Keryn's tasks were feeding the chickens twice a day, mowing the lawns and watering everything which took about 3 hours a day.  And Kurt used his plumbing skills to fix their sewage pipe, tried to do a better job at putting in a wooden deck than the terrible job they'd already done, and laid a concrete slab with almost no help until he demanded it.  

So for him, there was pretty much nothing organic or farming about his jobs.  He also discovered that the Argentinians have a very unique way of doing things - as slowly and with as much difficulty as possible.  Needless to say, his patience was sorely tested on several occasions.

So, while they were nice enough people and we enjoyed our introduction to macrobiotic food, it didn't turn out to be what we were expecting, or maybe hoping for.  Apart from Keryn's day of building a wall in the house, we didn't really learn any other organic farming skills about planting/maintaining fruit and veges, or raising animals or bees.  Here's hoping next time will be better, wherever that may be.