Working in Rural France

From France: WWOOFing in Collognes

I have lost count of the number of times on this world trip that we have ended up somewhere completely unexpected and turned out to be wonderful. Is it luck? Our attitude? An unknown force pushing us down a path meant to be? For the second time on this world trip we WWOOFed but this time in rural France instead of New Zealand. WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and the way it works is you stay with a family and work for them 4-6 hours per day in exchange for room and board. The idea is to learn about organic farming, green and biological living as well as the family life.

And what a unique experience it was. We were in the south of France, but not the French Riviera as you might imagine. With no neighbors in sight, we were outside of a tiny village called Collongues in the Provence region in the Maritime Alps (2 hours north of Cannes/Nice). Our host, Christian, picked us up at the train station (if you can call it that) and drove us the 19km to his house up a steep and curvy mountain road. He spoke English quite well which is perfect because Andy ended up working with him during the days on a wooden pool deck, getting the garden ready for the spring with compost and a tractor as well as helping to make a wooden door. Laure, his wife, spoke little English. It was a perfect opportunity for me because I used to be fluent in French but over the years I have forgotten quite a bit. I was astounded at just how much flowed back to me when Laure told me stories throughout the day as we worked in the kitchen or outside in the garden. Stories about her passion of aromatherapy and herbology, her experiences teaching Montassouri School, her love of non-pasteurized French cheese, directions on how to make true French bread or anything organically related. French words were swimming in my head and it was such a special gift to have the vocabulary come back to me in the way that it did! I love that I translated for Andy and Laure at the dinner table as the conversation flowed in a combination of both languages over a meal of wild boar (complete with buckshots), roquefurt and compte cheese and fresh tea from the local wild herbs. In the last 9 months traveling all over the world, we have spent much time against a language barrier. Honestly, I have felt inadequate and a bit bad that we require others to speak our language – it feels so ethnocentric. Finally, I feel satisfied that I had the opportunity to give back with my words in THEIR language. C’est vraiment magnifique!

Laure, Christian and their 6-year-old son Tom live in a house that Christian built 8 years ago complete with solar power and ecological materials throughout. The original stone building was built by the Knight’s Templar in the 13th century and while there is not much of the original house left, there is one wall with initial cross engravings in a shale stone archway. Pretty cool. Seven mountain ranges are visible in a 360 degree view including the snow covered French and Italian Alps. Badgers, wild boar, deer, birds and wild goats are aplenty. Not a single other person or house was in sight. It’s truly a mountain paradise. They are big on minimal environmental impact and all things green. I am pleased to have learned how to make organic jams, make effective compost and improve my French. Though I have also learned something new about myself during this experience. It is and always will be important for me to make choices that are natural, eco-friendly and healthy. However, I won’t be one to freak out if one day my child eats honey with some added sugar or if Andy forgets to reuse a plastic bag. While these things are incredibly important to me, I will choose not let it rule the level of my happiness or judge others because they don’t make the same choices.

The trio certainly is isolated there and part of the reason they host WWOOFers (in addition to the work) is the companionship and the social interaction for Tom. It’s perfect for Andy and I too to spend some time apart. Can you imagine spending 24 hours per day/7 days per week with a single person? It’s absolutely wonderful yet also quite difficult at times. We haven’t written too much about it in the blog thus far because we have to leave some surprises for the book we are going to publishJ

I would like to speak to that for just a moment. As you can imagine, on a trip like this one has lots and lots of time to think. What truly makes us happy? What do we want to do for the rest of our lives together? What is the most important? Etc. To start, we are going to publish a book based on our travel experiences. But what will make it especially unique is that it will come from both Andy and my voices with an intimate look into our relationship in the backdrop of traveling the world.

WE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE HONEST FEEDBACK ON OUR WRITING. PLEASE EMAIL ASBergdahl@gmail.com IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE! Thank you.