WWOOFER-ING

Baby Jane has instructed me to write about the WWOOFER Program because she's madly in love with it. Says she couldn't cope without being part of it, and wants other people to know about it and support it too.

This program - "World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms" - is run by an international organisation which puts people around the world who have organic farms - or who have farms that they would like to "go organic" - in touch with others who already have organic farms. It's intended to "spread the word" and share knowledge and skills so it's a seriously good and necessary thing to have in place, although totally "hippy", yes? All you need to join is, well, a farm and a real hatred of pesticides and other environmentally-harming substances, and a few smarty-pants environmentally-friendly solutions to your farming needs and problems.

What happens then is that WWOOFERS travel the world and work on others' farms for four hours each day in exchange for bed and board and a nice bit of sightseeing in the area. A working holiday thing!

Jane first heard about it three years ago from Lois and Paul in NZ who have been part of the organisation for years.

Lois, Jane and Paul in Innisfail.

Lois and Paul's
organic farm in NZ!

It was Lois who suggested Jane join despite the fact she only has the piddliest farm ever: just chickens and a vegetable patch and pots of herbs, and several rare species of ginger, around her house in the middle of a rainforest. Lois insisted she join because it isn't the size of the farm that matters, it's the positive attitude towards "the organic", which Jane has in abundance. She composts too!

Jane's place.

So Jane joined and now has a steady stream of fellow-farmers turning up to help around the place. Mostly it's the children of farmers who take part or uni students having a gap year, and Jane insists that a nicer bunch of kids you would be hard-pressed to meet. Every one of them has been very special, although all in different ways.

So far she's had people mostly from Europe and Japan, but I'll only tell you about a few of them:

1) WWOOFER Wu from Korea: who she nearly killed (knocked him unconscious with a screen door - an accident obviously) but who has rung her regularly for the last three years, just to chat or to have things explained, and who tells everyone that Jane's the best friend he's ever had, so she's obviously forgiven.

2) Ahmed from Peshawar who, although Pakistani, looked creepily like a miniature version of our nephew Jamie ...

Jamie.

... only with a brutally Syrian nose.

A seriously Syrian nose on a Laos god.

I asked Ahmed about how he got that nose, because I knew Pakistanis didn't usually, and he was so thrilled I'd noticed since, as it turned out, he's very proud of his unknown Syrian ancestor and says that everyone who has lived for millennium along the Silk Road is forever finding these strange genetic quirks turning up in their children's physiognomy. I knew exactly what he was talking about because all the Peshawari folk I've met in the past have had strange combination of features, like blue eyes coupled with African hair, or Straits-Chinese eyes only green, so obviously there's this huge genetic melting pot happening along that road; lots of proof of traveling merchant R&R with the local barmaids? Or that the tradition of what we in HK call "Shenzhen wives" has a long, long history?

3) Chieko from Japan who was traveling with her friend Miho. Miho wasn't actually a WWOOFER but Chieko understandably didn't want to visit foreign farms alone so dragged her along for the ride. Jane didn't mind having them both and they turned out to be lovely, lovely kids. Chieko in particular was very special; very strong-minded but with a beautiful gentle nature; an unusual combination that reminded me a lot of my mother.

Chieko and Miho
on a painting break! Getting really, really dirty
was a new concept for them.

Chieko's story is that her grandfather has the most amazing garden - massive and right down the side of a mountain with waterfalls and streams and every plant in exactly the right place - that she intends to eventually take over (wish I had a photo to show you so you can see for yourself the sheer perfection of it). Because she fully intends to never use anything non-organic on it she was doing the year of WWOOFERing in anticipation of her inheritance. Sad to say she learned nothing from us because they simply helped me paint the Gecko Guesthouse.

Hey, here's a funny story about this pair. Once we started painting the interior, I decided I didn't like the boring cream paint we'd bought and so tipped in a couple of other colours ... and they both screamed. I'm not kidding. Mad screaming because I poured in a couple of other colours! Seems this was totally beyond their comprehension: that you could actually change things if you didn't like them! Revolutionary concept, huh!

My new invented colour we christened Chieko Cream! We also invented a Miho Blue but I didn't get a photo of that.

Oh, and here's another story: because they worked so hard on something outside the WWOOFER brief, as a treat Baby Jane took them into the Outback to prospect for gemstones. Although Miho found nothing (so a kindly prospector gave her an opal), Chieko found three moonstones; huge in size and of the most gorgeous blue-green colour. She was already thrilled with them but Jane then took the stones to a gem cutter friend to assess their value, and he was so impressed with one of the stones - and because he thought Chieko was a very special kid - free of charge he cut it into this huge faceted jewel for Chieko to put into a pendant ... and she was beyond speechless with gratitude. She just cried and cried and for the rest of her WWOOFER stint kept saying "I now have my life's great treasure!"

4) Denise from Australia, another very special person:

 Super-Denise, WWOOFER Extraordinaire.

Her story is that when she turned 50 she suddenly realised she didn't like her husband and kids; that they made her feel belittled and unvalued. Because she couldn't bear the thought of spending the rest of her days with them, she left. Just walked out! That's when she bought herself a little camper van, joined the WWOOFER program despite not having a farm of her own, and, for over a decade, has traveled around Australia willingly working on other people's organic farms. She's enjoying herself immensely and all I can say is "Yo, you go girl!"

5) Julie from Korea:

Julie and Juanita.

Julie was working with Jane this visit, but there was a problem. Running the Aged Care Facility is currently taking up so much of Jane's time - there's a story, but one I probably shouldn't tell - Jane didn't actually have a lot happening on the organic farm front and wasn't sure what to do with the latest WWOOFER, so when no one wanted to go down to Townsville to help me oil my decks, Jane mentioned it to Julie and she volunteered. It was fun and I really should tell you about Julie, only I'll do it in another post.

So that's the WWOOFER program. An organisation doing good work and enabling you to make solid international friendships with folks from all over the globe! Definitely a good thing, yes? And a program you now want to support? Well, all you have to do to be part of this good and necessary international organisation is to find pesticides abhorrent and be determined to run your farm, whatever its size, without them. Knowledge of composting is a bonus!