SPOILER – WE HAVE STOPPED TAKING VOLUNTEERS, BUT DON’T DESPAIR THERE ARE MANY OTHER HOSTS!
We have been taking 10 volunteers a year for 22 years now. They are lovely people, often in their twenties and keen to learn about our organic lifestyle and improve their english. They contact us through WWOOF [World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms] and Workaway. We are only able to take 10% of the applicants who contact us, and have to judge them based on their message and profile. They live as one of the family and were excellent role models for our children as they grew through their teenage years. Some have become family friends who we visit in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Germany.
I am writing this post because Luca from Belgium has just left after 9 weeks with us. He is a great guy, gave us plenty of help and laughed a lot. As a leaving present he gave us this video, a Teaser of Laikenbuie as he called it, and we would like to share it with you.
This next photo is a collaboration between two of our volunteers. Marie returned home to Germany to marry her Aussie groom and our present was Ines as the wedding photographer. It was a super wedding, organised by Marie’s family and held in the courtyard of their old farmhouse. We even taught some Scottish ceilidh dances!
Marie came to us for six months when she was 18 [and I’d better not say how long ago!] not knowing what path to take. She returned home to study agriculture. Having taught her to drive a tractor, I am proud to say that she now drives road trains and huge agricultural machines!
Ines came more recently, and following her stay returned to higher education to pursue her passion of photography and film making. Ines’s photos are on Flickr where she has 46k followers!
These three are just the tip of the iceberg – we have been so lucky to host over 200 volunteers from around the world, the vast majority of whom have enriched our life here at Laikenbuie.