#workway

I wake up early and take my morning coughing fit outside to avoid waking the house. 20 breath seeking minutes later my lungs decide they are sufficiently clear and I settle into my now routine dessert breakfast/lunch. I take it easy while Charly drives to the ferry to pick up the two new workawayers.

The mid 20’s French Canadian couple arrives and look a little bewildered. I can empathize having taken the similar drive just a few days ago. They quietly introduce themselves in a thick french accent and I immediately forget both of their names. We all stand around awkwardly looking at each other while I attempt to make some conversation. Efforts failing I take them on the condensed version of the tour as though I am some sort of spokesman. They don’t say a whole lot and even though they are fellow countrymen I still need to use my slow basic english that is becoming the only way I can speak. I fear for my return to the english speaking world.

This is their first workaway so they don’t seem quite sure what to do with themselves and Charly and Systa don’t really have a plan or an agenda or a timeline or a schedule or any of the things that help to orient them in their new work/living arrangement. So I wander from room to room devising a work back plan and inform the team what’s going to happen. It is today that I get upgraded to ‘supervisor’ and start commanding the troops. We sort through boxes and boxes of cables, electronics, circuit boards, hard drives, laptops, scrap metal, kids toys, antique electronics etc.

A few hours later Charly tells me to drive the 2 new Canadians to the nearby bird sanctuary island while they take the trash to the next town. We wander around for an hour or so making light conversation but it doesn’t flow very well. All I really want right now is to be sarcastic and make a quip that someone gets and doesn’t correct me thinking I’m not understanding their english. I want to complain and commiserate. I want to talk nonsense about nothing and find it hilarious. I want to judge things! Is traveling forcing me to be a better person? Is not being able to use complex english forcing me to use more authentic forms of communicating? Is it making me nicer? What is happening to me!?!

Anyways, I kindly offer to show them the village and we stop just in time to see an old man on the pier reeling in a feisty pollack. If I had to guess the man’s accent it would be a mix between Australian, Scottish, Norwegian and part hearing aid shoutian.

I am now in my last few days at Greenstones. Unfortunately it’s been raining a lot this week, which has been a bit miserable. I’m starting to yearn for a sunnier, warmer climate! It’s still quite cool here, and very windy as we are by the coast. But that hasn’t stopped my digging quest, and the veggie garden is now nearly completely turned over ready for planting. Working with the earth has been quite absorbing, and satisfying. I’ve learnt a little about plants and soil, and the needs and behaviour of the ducks and chickens (who help me out!), just from direct experience and observation. All little things that will come in useful one day! During very rainy weather I’ve been taking photographs of the Yurts for the website, which I’ve posted below.

On Tuesday I will be flying to Poland, spending the weekend in Warsaw and then heading towards the Lithuanian border for another workaway experience.

After hearing the news that a full Conservative government are now in power in Britain, I feel more determined than ever to build up my knowledge and work towards an alternative future. The UK is indeed going through some big changes, many of which are going to be very negative ones, such as the privatisation of public services and the ruination of the poorest people in society. There are millions of people who are going to protest these negative changes, hopefully by using positive community led action and working independently for change. I hope that by building skills throughout my workaway trip, I will be able to contribute positively to some of this change once I am back in the UK.

I have ideas to restart The Confluence Project- an Arts and Music collaboration project I ran for a year in Sheffield (August 2013 - September 2014. www.confluenceproject.co.uk). I believe I could regenerate it with a new perspective on the aims of the project, and a fresh outlook. Centred around action, discussion, dialogue and development, the project has always had potential as a developmental collective. It never really ‘ended’, just took a break as I left Sheffield last year. Once I am a bit more settled somewhere again, I hope to restart The Confluence Project, combining it with some of my new thoughts and plans about community and environmentalism.