My Workaway experience

Howdy, blogobuds. I’m writing this on the plane away from my first “real” Workaway experience. I’ve had a couple of fun WWOOF day trips to a farm, but this was my first time staying over with a Workaway host in exchange for labor. In case you don’t know, here’s a quick rundown on what Workaway, WWOOF, and HelpX are all about.

WWOOF stands for WorldWide somethingsomething Organic Farms. Basically, you provide maybe 5ish or more hours of work a day on someone’s organic farm, and in exchange, they host you, provide some tasty, tasty cultural exchange, and usually feed you. Workaway and HelpX are basically the same idea, just expanded to more activities; maybe someone needs an au pair, web design help, carpentry assistance, hostel receptionist, or, in my case, help starting a garden. You typically work 4-5 hours a day, and your lodging can be anything from a spot to camp on to a hostel bed to your own bedroom. You typically get two days off each week, when you can explore the town or go on day trips.

Without further ado, here’s a summary of my Workaway experience in Montreal. I stayed with a bicycle and sustainability enthusiast near downtown Montreal, along with his two teenage kids. He was a really sweet guy, and I never felt like he was taking advantage; we often worked side by side, and he seemed happy for any help. And yet...it was hard. Workaway really made me face my mediocre-at-best health. The first day was an “easy” day, where I just spent a couple hours helping with spring cleaning, but spending all that time on my feet just wiped me out and destroyed my often-sore back. After my two or three hours of work, all I could do was lie in bed until I passed out. So much for my first day of exploring the city.

My second day went similarly. I had bad cramps, but I didn’t want to seem lazy, so I worked through it, feeling utterly miserable. I’m sure if I had asked to lie down, my host would have been thoroughly accommodating, but that’s the thing: I didn’t want to take advantage. By using Workaway instead of AirBnB, I agreed to work for five hours a day, and I didn’t want to seem lazy on my second day there. Again, after the work was finished, I went to my room and lay in bed until I fell asleep early.

On these days, I was tired, but I was also all out of spoons. (Google “the spoon theory.” The tl;dr version, as I see it, is this: Everyone starts each day with a certain number of figurative ‘spoons’ that they can use up, with the number varying from person to person. Every activity costs a certain amount of spoons. So if you’re sick, you may have only three spoons and you use them up by showering [one spoon] and cooking breakfast [two spoons] and then you’re basically exhausted for the day. Another person might still have lots of spoons after this, but on that day, you don’t.) I’m largely an introvert by nature, and the whole Workaway experience took WAY more social spoons than I expected, leaving me with no spoons to go out exploring alone. For one thing, I had some idealized vision of living harmoniously with a host family, as if I was a long-lost sister suddenly adopted. I didn’t realize how awkward it would be invading some kids’ house, constantly wondering if they found me to be an annoyance, simply the “hired help” trampling on their turf. Going to the bathroom in the middle of the night and knowing my footsteps could wake up my host’s kids took up spoons. Eating breakfast in the kitchen, hoping I wasn’t doing anything wrong, took up spoons. Eating family dinners took up a LOT of spoons, because the portions were way way way too small for me, but I didn’t want to take more than two servings when nobody else took even two, especially being the only American AND the only non-skinny person there. Despite having a very friendly host, spoons were flying left and right, and this coupled with hours of physically demanding and boring work just left me dead before dinnertime (which sounds like a Lemony Snickett book). I did have a day off to explore, but this was only because it was cold and stormy so we couldn’t work outside, so it wasn’t an ideal sightseeing day and I ended up mostly just sitting in a mall.

Now, my experience is of course not everyone’s. But at any rate, here are some questions to ask yourself if you are questioning whether Workaway/WWOOF/HelpX is for you:

1. Do you want a full cultural and linguistic immersion? I spent basically all my time in the house with the family, not all of whom spoke English, so if I had been looking for a full French immersion experience, this would have been a great opportunity. My French is pretty terrible, so this didn’t end up being a positive thing for me.
2. Are you extroverted?
3. Are you physically healthy and strong? I don’t consider myself especially weak or medically unable to do work, but I really felt it when I had to stand, walk, bend, or really do anything at all for hours on end, and it sapped my energy.
4. Are you a night owl? I tended to work from 10 AM to 4 PM. This would be good if you want to nap in the afternoon and then go out at night. I am not a night owl.

All in all, I would say #1 is the biggest question. I’m used to Couchsurfing and spending my days exploring the city, maybe going out with my hosts on trips or to bars. Workaway hardly left me any time to explore the city; what I really did was spend a lot of time with my host family. And while I love getting to know my Couchsurfing hosts, this was a completely different vibe, and it took way more spoons than Couchsurfing.

Would I do it again? I’m not sure. I sure don’t have the same feeling of having lived in the city as I usually do; I feel as if I barely saw it. If I do, I’ll bring a friend next time to smooth things over socially, and because it takes fewer spoons for me to go out with a friend. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this and found it informative.