Always a guest...

One of the hard things about wwoofing is that you are constantly a guest in someone else's house. I'd thought about the plus side of living with other people before I started this trip, but hadn't really thought much about the downside to this. You're always living by different rules and methods to what you're likely used to, and are never as comfortable as you would be in your own home. People often have a very particular way of doing things (I had no idea there were so many different ways to wash dishes...) and keeping their house, and as the guest you constantly try and fit around this. I feel that 12 years of living in shared houses has probably given me some basic training for this, but I'm also discovering that this is a dynamic that has to be worked on in each place. How do you relax and feel at home without being in someone elses's way or in their personal space all the time?

I've had pretty honest discussions with many of my hosts so far about this. At one farm, the mother of the family talked about how hard she found it when she first had strangers in the home. Especially in a family home, people often have a set way of doing things, and having to constantly fit around other people must be hard work. Over the last 3 years of hosting, they've established rules and guidelines that they tell wwoofers up front, trying to ease the transition of having a new person in an already busy house.

Another host and I chatted about space. He talked about how he struggles sometimes with having wwoofers in his house, as they often want to chat and hang out, and all he wants to do is have some time on his own. This is something that I found challenging at the start of my trip – I’m an extrovert and I am naturally drawn to want to spend time with other people. But I’ve come to learn and respect other people’s space a lot more. Often people have chosen to live in remote rural areas because they like peace and quiet, and so I’ve got better at allowing the host to dictate the social time, and entertain myself outside this. 

It's interesting to see the other side of the situation. For people who have wwoofers constantly and back to back, it can be a big intrusion into their lives, and their homes. Every time someone new arrives you have to start again and adapt to having another person in the house.

But as a long term wwoofer, after living in so many different places, it can be challenging to remember to always prop open the bathroom door in a certain place, or what goes in the dishwasher and what doesn’t. Cooking can also be difficult – I don’t have my usual store cupboard of ingredients, so I’m often cooking with ingredients outside my comfort zone, using other people’s cooking equipment (oh how I miss my trusty pans) and on different hobs (my current farm has a wood fired stove, where left to right is your high to low temperature control and the oven temperature is about sticking your hand in and guessing how hot it is).

I’ve discovered that being without a steady home can be both incredibly liberating, but also at times unsettling. Sometimes I miss being able to do a task my way, or eat at the time I want to eat at. But then I realise that I’m experiencing incredibly generous hospitality from so many people, being welcomed in as a complete stranger and being made to feel incredibly at home. I guess it's about good communicating - being aware that you're in someone else's home and patterns and therefore trying to be a considerate guest, but equally for the host to choose how they raise potential issues and realise that it's not always easy for the visitor either...