Fuck it, I’m Farming

Hi again! How are you? I’ve missed you.

I think that the last time that I posted or thought about writing anything at all was April… so yeah, it’s been a while. I haven’t written anything for myself in a while because I’m typically either:

a.      way too caught up in school and orgs to think about anything else

b.     way too in my head to write anything personal

c.     way too lazy

The past few months have been a combination of all three. But then, I remembered that this ~blog~ was supposed to be a fun little outlet for me. And since a few people have asked about my Workaway experience in Greece, I figured I would write something about it. So, here are some answers to some questions that I’ve gotten from friends and family that maybe, perhaps, other people might be interested in too :)

 What is Workaway?

First, I’ll get the boring stuff out of the way: Workaway is an organization that connects volunteers with hosts from around the world where you can do a range of activities (manual labor, taking care of kids, working at a hostel, etc.) in exchange for free food and room and board. Sometimes you even get paid! You have to create an account and purchase a membership ($44-$56 a year depending upon if you sign up as a single person or with a friend/partner), in order to look through their long lists of hosts. Hosts will often require their volunteers to stay for a specific amount of time (I had to stay for at least three weeks), that typically ranges anywhere from a minimum of one week to one month. Once you find a host you like, you can message the host what kind of experience you’re looking for, how long you planning on staying, and all that jazz. 

How did I find out about Workaway?

 I discovered Workaway in the most wonderful way — it was serendipitous, really. Anyone who knows me well knows that I’ve always had this… fascination with farming. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know who put this idea in my head. But ever since high school I had (naïvely) romanticized the idea of working on a farm and imagined that it would involve lots of frolicking and skipping around in fields. So when the time came to pick a topic to write about for a semester-long feature story for one of my classes, I knew within two seconds what I wanted to write about. I had known about World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) and Workaway for a few years, and I found some data that revealed people my age were taking gap semesters/years to pursue these programs and work on farms. I pitched the idea that young adults wanted to work on these farms to find a sense of human connectivity and purpose during a time period where it felt like both were lacking. My pitch was accepted. I started “researching” (it was more like low-key stalking) people on social media who had recently done WWOOFs and Workaways, and I found Charlon and Charlotte, a.k.a. @charlstraveljournal. They’re a couple of “digital nomads” from Malta who quit University and their day jobs during the pandemic in order to travel. Right after I heard about their Workaway experience, I knew that I had to look into it, so I convinced my friend to split an account with me, and we decided to go where Charlon and Charlotte had stayed, Mouries Farm.

If you want to read the full story that I wrote for my class, click here. 

Why did I choose Mouries Farm?

There were a few things that were really important to me when choosing a Workaway. I wanted to spend the majority of my time outside, meet a lot of new people, travel to a different country, and do work that felt meaningful. Charlon and Charlotte had told me about a few of their Workaway experiences, but Mouries stood out to me because they got to meet around 20 other volunteers from around the world while taking care of one of the rarest and most ancient breeds of horses. When I did some more research about agriculture in Greece, I learned that the agriculture industry contributes to 4.1% of Greece’s GDP (a decrease of ~13% since the early ‘90s), and the majority of this contribution comes from small farms like Mouries. I felt like if I worked in a country that was a little more reliant on agritourism, that was where my work could be the most useful and beneficial to my hosts. And then of course… who doesn’t want to have a “Mamma Mia” summer in Greece?

 What was everyday life like?

We worked for four hours a day, six days a week. Typically, your shift was either in the morning from 9:00-1:00 or in the afternoon from 5:00-9:00 with a group of volunteers. Every once in a while, you had early shift (you started work at 8:00 instead of 9:00 and worked by yourself for the first hour), or lonely shift (you worked your whole shift alone from 1:00-5:00). Since the farm is only open during the summer, which means that the horses are only on farm property during the summer and released into the wild for the rest of the year, the majority of our time was spent taking care of and educating tourists about Skyrian horses. We dragged wheelbarrows and trailers loaded with bales of hay and giant jugs of water all over the farm, groomed the horses, attended to injuries, chased down the occasional runaway, took little kids on rides and gave them lessons, talked to tourists, and of course, scooped up a lot of horse shit.

While the volunteers weren’t working, we were either exploring the island, eating, or sleeping (probably at the beach). The best part about volunteering on a tiny island like Skyros is that everyone knows each other — you’re always meeting somebody’s cousin — and there’s practically no crime on the island. So, since we didn’t have cars (except for the week where a group of us rented scooters), the volunteers hitchhiked everywhere. We’d hitchhike to the beach, into town for gyros and drinks, or to our favorite spot, Juicy Bar. The best rides were the ones where a group of us piled into the back of a pick-up truck and watched shades of turquoise, green, brown, and gold wizz by as we passed the cliffsides that sloped into sand that touched the ocean and eventually turned into sky… I’m thinking of one ride in particular that was simply straight out of a movie.

After work or a day of adventures around the island, we had EPIC dance parties on the beach. All of the locals our age who were on the island knew the volunteers from Mouries Farm and every summer, they partied with them. We were invited to some very strange and very fun parties on boats, in pools, and at the home of Scooter George (inside joke, hehe). While waking up hungover for work wasn’t fun, dancing on the beach to “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” with a glass of some random ouzo concoction next to a bonfire made it worth it (although, reading this back it does sound a little culty).

What was the living situation like?

I slept in a very old tent for three weeks that had many holes! Was it that bad? No. Would I do it again? Also, no.

A lot of people have also asked me about the bathrooms. There were two outdoor showers (with no hot water), BUT we did have a real, indoor, ~very glamorous~ sink/toilet situation that was located outside the taverna, where we ate all of our meals.

The farm was owned by the same family who owned Mouries Taverna, so that’s where the volunteers ate lunch and dinner. We ate a lot of Greek salad, a lot of bread, a lot of pasta, and on special occasions, we had the best tzatziki in the entire world. And then of course, the waiters would occasionally sneak us wine if we asked very nicely (shout out to George of the wine).

How was the experience?

I’m not going to be really annoying and say that abroad ~changed~ me, but the combination of living in a new place, experiencing a different culture, being outside 24/7, never looking at a screen, and doing hard-core manual labor did change my headspace.

As a lover of agendas and long term plans (at least I used to be), I had always expected to have an internship for the summer going into senior year. But then COVID happened. And I spent a year and a half of my life staring at a computer screen. And the thought of spending the summer doing another remote activity didn’t feel like something I could handle.

While I’ve always been more of an anxious person, I noticed around December of 2020 that I had this heightened sense of anxiety that I hadn’t experienced since high school. I felt like I had no purpose, like I couldn’t get anything right, and like I had no identity outside of school and the contents of my résumé. Over the next semester, everything got worse — being in Upstate New York during the winter is hard, especially when you’re stuck taking classes in your room for most of it — and I knew that I had to do something that made me feel purposeful again.

 And that’s what farming did. It wasn’t anything like I expected it to be (there was much less frolicking and much more poop-picking), but it was exactly what I needed. I felt strong, I felt capable, I felt independent. My phone happened to break on the third day in Skyros which was very stressful and annoying for Keren (whose phone we had to share for three weeks) and my parents (who had some trouble contacting me), but selfishly, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was just fully immersed in nature, the new friends I had made, and the work that I was doing. Sometimes the most impactful situations can happen from something you couldn’t write in your planner six months prior.

And now! Here are some photos and some quotes from my very professional, very sophisticated, and very adult journal (not a diary). Hope you enjoy :)