Area: Swedish Lapland

PLEASE, READ OUR TEXT CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU APPLY We, Paul and Maya, we moved from the Netherlands to the last wilderness in the forest mountains of Swedish Lappland. Here we live together with our 28 Siberian Huskies and 1 Japanese Spitz. In Mörtberg it is winter from October till the end of April, sometimes we still have snow in May. From mid May till mid August we have about 24 hours daylight. In winter, during the shortest day we have about 4 hours daylight. Before you even think of coming to our place, you should be aware of the fact that there is no internet access, no television, no warm showers, and no means of public transport here where we live. And ............. in summer we have a lot of mosquit's, and that really is a challenge. When helpers arrive by train or bus, we pick them up from the station in Murjek. We live far away from the civilised world in the beautiful wilderness of Lappland, however no luxury can be expected here. We live in the middle of nature and we intend to live as good as possible from the nature. Our house is heated with wood, we pick a lot of berries and mushrooms in summer and autumn, we use herbs and many things that can be found in nature. We have good fishing possibilities around us in summer and in winter. And of course we see to it that we do not spoil nature. We have a lot of wild animals around us such as bears, lynxes, foxes, sometimes a wolf, beavers, moose, reindeer, otters and a great variety of birds etc. Although we have no television, we have Animal Planet Live here on Mörtberg. When you want to come to our place, we expect that you respect all living creatures. We do not allow that you come to our place and kill animals. During wintertime we can have a lot of snow and it also can be as cold as minus 40 degrees. This means that living here can be very isolated. And this also means that during winter we have no jobs that can be done by helpers. However many jobs can be done in summer. Summer 2012 we intent to finish rebuilding the dogyard. We need some help with building work, cutting trees, cleaning the forest, painting and repairing our buildings, garden work, growing vegetables and fruits and so on. Cleaning the kennels of the dogs also might be a job that could be done. In change for the work that helpers do for us, we offer a bed in a blockhouse and three meals per day to the person who wants to come and help us. If you are prepared to work hard, you can have a real good time here. We expect you to work 4 days per week from 8 hours each. 3 Free days per week. You also need to have an international health insurance, from which we ask you to give us a copy as soon as you arrive here, as well as a copy from your passport. You need to have a good sleeping bag, because this is Polar Circle land. We are looking for trustworthy people who love nature and animals. In case you are a smoker it is better for you to apply somewhere else. Please do not think that it is possible to make sleddog tours in summer, because then you surely will be disappointed. In summer our Siberian Huskies take a long rest, to be ready for work the next winter. Where to go to on your days off? 1. For the Workawayers who love to hike, there is a nice walk about 5 to 6 km away from Mörtberg. The place is called Fioltjärn. A small lake with a cabin where one can stay overnight (free), make his own fire, catch som fish etc. 2. Another beautiful hiking route is to Stuorajaur which is about 8 km away from Mörtberg. A beautiful lake with a lovely cabin. You can fish here and stay (free) overnight as well. 3. For the extreme hikers we can offer a hike that is around 100 km and takes 3 days. The first overnight stop is on the Magical Polar Circle, where are two bigger cabins where hikers can stay overnight for free. The second day they can sleep in Ekorrbo in Pålkem, a very small village. Ekorrbo is an ancient "arbetsstuga" where children without a mother could stay during the days that their fathers had to work in the forests. 4. Jokkmokk. Once a week we drive to Jokkmokk to by fresh food. Jokkmokk is about 77 km away from Mörtberg and here you can find the Saamen museum, and a lot of other interesting things. On our shopping days, our Workawayers are free to join us. 5. In the community of Jokkmokk the World Heritage Lapponia can be found, that consists of several huge national parks. Workawayers who are interested to go hiking in Lapponia, can save their days off and go hiking in Lapponia for several days. 6. Once a month we go shopping in Luleå and our Workawayers can join us. We pass Gammelstad, which also is a World Heritage. So while we are buying food and other stuff, our Workawayers can walk around in Gammelstad.

Area: Midi Pyrenees

Over spring, we will be needing help with (lots of) mowing, cleaning, taking down wallpaper, getting the bicycles back into working order, sanding and varnishing garden furniture, sewing, cooking... We don't usually contact Workawayers ourselves, please contact us if you're interested in staying with us for a couple of weeks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- We're a family of five: Patricia, 45, French-German, translator, Pascal, French, 51, water treatment engineer, Kilian, 20, Adrien, 17, and Caroline, 16. We live in an old farmhouse in the countryside, 35 kms South of Toulouse, between Toulouse and the Pyrenees. We have a "gîte", a rental, which is rented out by the week and usually needs to be cleaned on Saturdays. We are also renovating the house we live in and can always use a hand. Our family language is French, but the five of us are also more or less fluent in English and German. We live 4 kms from the town (10.000 inhabitants) and the railway station, you can borrow a bicycle or get a ride when we drive into town. We have both travelled extensively (Europe, North America, Africa and a little Asia and Oz/NZ) and lived in different countries. As a family we spent two years living in Dakar, Senegal. We like the idea of a cultural exchange and will gladly provide a bedroom, breakfast, lunch as well as a family dinner against some help with painting, gardening, building, cleaning... We have two cats (Starsky & Hutch) and sometimes also chickens. Pascal smokes in the house, so we do of course accept smokers. But we don't want you to smoke in the bedrooms. We'd rather not accept families with babies or toddlers, because our house is not adapted to accommodate young children, but we have no problem with hosting couples, groups of friends, families with older kids, cats, dogs, horses... We also have lots of space for camper-vans or tents, if you travel with those. We ski, so if you like skiing, we'll be going to Ax-Bonascre (in the Pyrénées) all winter, about once a week if the weather permits. Things you should definitely know: (seriously, read this!) Auterive, our town, is boring. There is absolutely nothing going on here, really. No bars or nice cafés, just the market on Friday mornings. And there is no way of getting back here from Toulouse after 9pm. If you have your own car, you can have great day-trips or drive into Toulouse. If not, you might find yourself stuck here or need to find Couchsurfing hosts in Toulouse if you want to party there (apparently it's rather easy to find those Couchsurfing hosts, though). Here, all you can do is run or cycle... or swim and lie in the sun in summer. Our kids are good kids, but they're teens, they're mostly in their rooms with their headphones on (you know what I mean). You are very welcome to spend the week-ends here and we will of course provide the food and spend some time with you, but consider yourself warned: it might be boring! We are not a traditional French family. We don't have 3-course meals twice a day, we're anything but "chic" and we will very probably fall into English as soon as you get here... (Also we made our first workawayer eat horsemeat tartare :) - but he volunteered!) But we do have cheese and wine every night, we also know a large variety of people and we will take you along if we see them while you're here. I'll drive you to the station or into town and pick you up and I will do my best to try and speak French with you if that's what you want. We will talk about French and world politics and economics and culture, Pascal will share his very French way of finding everything better here, I will explain (and diss!) the French school system, we will make you listen to French music... Last but not least, because it is important: Pascal is very thorough when it comes to work. Some would say he's unnecessarily fussy. He will indeed make you sand that wall a third time for those two little specks and he will make you take out the built-in closet to paint behind it. :)