Josh & Irene

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Beschreibung

We are a married couple (10 years) who just so happened to meet by some very interesting circumstances and ever since life has been a continuous unfolding of incredible experiences which neither of us could have imagined. After more or less completing our goals that we had set a few years ago, it was time to pull out the hammer and chisel and break ourselves away from the security of our every day routines. (It's always so scary and exciting) We joined workaway to see if this website will help write the next chapter in our lives as we are again looking to begin the move into the great unknown!

We did a 4.5month workaway on a beautiful finca in Guadalest, Spain for winter 2022/23 and are looking forward to our next adventure. If you are curious to see what we did.. we documented some of our work on our Youtube channel. @lionfishadventure.

https://www.youtube.com/@lionfishadventure

We are looking for more long term workaway contracts because we do not wish to move around very much.

Interessengebiete

Sprachen

Gesprochene Sprachen
Deutsch: Fließend
Englisch: Fließend
Spanisch: Grundkenntnisse
Französisch: Grundkenntnisse

Mehr Infos zu meinen Sprachinteressen
We have a big interest in being able to improve our Spanish speaking abilities. I (Josh) know a little bit of Spanish from working with migrant Mexicans in the USA (our boss didn't understand Spanish so it was great!) I took one semester of Spanish in school but did REALLY bad! Irene also wants to learn but right now she only knows "Hola". :)

Einen Sprachpartner finden

Bereiche, die uns interessieren oder in denen wir anderen etwas beibringen können

Interessiert uns:  

Gartenarbeiten

Tourismus / Gastgewerbe

Betreuung von Tieren

Ökoprojekte

Mithilfe auf einem Bauernhof

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Bereits etwas Erfahrung vorhanden  

Hilfe mit Computer /Internet

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In der Lage, anderen etwas beizubringen:  

Kunstprojekte

Heimwerker- und Bauarbeiten

Handwerkliche Arbeiten

Zubereiten / Kochen von Mahlzeiten für die Familie

Was könntest du arbeiten?

Irene is a full time artist (painter/teacher) and is great with color and making people feel loved. She has an incredible ability to decorate a room with a clean and modern style while simultaneously balancing a cozy atmosphere. In 10 years of knowing her she has only prepared one bad meal that I can remember. I have no idea how she does it, perhaps so much cooking for her big farm family when she was younger, but she knows her way around the kitchen. She has taken multiple yoga instructor courses and teaches small classes at her art studio. Her "old life" was in sales for the medical industry and her understanding of anatomy and medicine drove her interest toward yoga and alternative therapies.

Josh (me), I never "specialized" in anything but I always did many different jobs. Currently I am working as a professional gardener here in Switzerland. I have also worked building houses for a few years. In that job I also did some tile/ceramic, hard wood floors, dry wall, masonry, etc. I attended college for a little while and studied graphic design and photography/video. I owned a small online business for a few years selling a sport product (slackline) system that I designed. So, I have some computer and online skills but I am beginning to move away from this and wanting to go back to focus on the more hands on "real world" work instead of digital world work but I am open to help with both.

We live in a tiny house which we have been improving/remodeling together for the past 5 years. So we have both learned a lot more since owing our own home. Besides the home building skills mentioned above we have learned some electrical (grid power and 12v solar), Rain collection (we depend on rain/snow 5 months out of the year) and because of this we also learned plumbing and water filtration techniques.

But probably our biggest love is our garden! We have our "ascetic garden" and our, always changing (mostly because insects eat everything) "food garden". We are experimenting with composting and in the ground food crops. For the past three+ years I have been experimenting with different methods of hydroponic gardening. We also have a family of bonsai trees that live with us and are loved very much. They don't speak... but they teach us a lot.

Alter

42 & 44

Was noch ...

Well this might be the longest profile you ever read but maybe you want to know a bit more than our "surface story". To get directly to the point, I guess people probably want to know why are we on workaway?

Three reasons come to mind right away...
1. We would like to spend winters in mild climates that have a lot of sunlight. (November - March)
2. We are very much longing to use the skills and talents we have in order to help/teach others and to engage in a working lifestyle which gives us a sense of meaning and appreciation.
3. I (Josh) would like to gain more gardening experience in a wide variety of climate zones (Mediterranean & tropical) so as to be more diverse in my agricultural understanding. Because work is very slow during our winters here in Switzerland I want to find a way to be able to continue doing what I love to do year round.

How is that?

The back story...
After returning from a longer travel, we began working jobs that we were not really enjoying. Not that we had terrible jobs, it is just that our work left us feeling very unsatisfied and we lacked enthusiasm to continue doing things which were simply not interesting to us.

Irene was brave enough and broke out of that to follow her dream of being a full-time artist in the autumn of 2019. I, on the other hand, remained working in order to be able to help Irene achieve her dream and, mostly, because I had no idea what to do otherwise. The monotony of my work life left me feeling quite empty and depressed. I hear people say "Just do what you love!" Sounds great.. but how?.. and most difficult for me is... what is it that I love to do? Irene and I both love doing many things and "a job" to me has always meant doing ONE thing.

I was told about workaway from someone I met many years ago at a meditation retreat and I guess the name just stuck in the back of my head. Workaway popped in my head one evening and so I decided to check it out and see what hosts needed. We are amazed!! It seemed like many of the jobs which we are interested in and had done in the past were being searched for. So we signed up and decided to follow this path.

After, our first workaway experience were we spent 4.5 months working on a 10 hector finca mostly doing gardening my mind was set. After returning home I secured a job as a seasonal gardener and plan to continue with this work over winters via migrant work/workaway.

For a few years I have been feeling "pushed" to make a move, and having learned from the past, I knew I needed to wait for the "pull". This feels like the "pull" I have been waiting for... that we have been waiting for and so we are very excited to see what might happen next.

Who are we personally?

That's an ever changing story!

We love to do outdoor activities. Hiking, camping, biking, going for walks, rock climbing, paddle boarding, sailing, etc.. We both also have a lot of interest in religion/philosophy/psychology. In recent years a lot of our travels have been to different parts of the world (Central/South America, Southeast Asia) to learn more about indigenous and Eastern religious thought.

We also would have to be with hosts that can laugh and be silly. We enjoy laughing and "stiff/uptight" is not our style. As one interesting soul once said, "If you don't have a sense of humor, it just isn't funny anymore."

I would say we are easy to get along with and welcoming, but we do very much value alone quiet time. We feel that it is important to balance social interactions with personal time. We would respect this from you and this would be something of importance to us if we come to you as a host. (*Pink Gorilla* is the key word to let us know you read this)

Open honest communication, as hard as it might be sometimes, is something we both strive to implement into our lives. During our non-working time we are more attracted to the intimacy of being with individuals or small groups rather than big groups and a lot of activity. During working times, we can easily take on a lot and we really enjoy working with/helping others and having the feeling of being useful. We were both pretty hard "party animals" in the past and now we just feel more content sitting in a cozy relaxed environment with a couple friends having good conversations and a lot of laughs.

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I (Josh) have been very interested in outdoor adventure activities my whole life. I've been through a few of the "extreme sports" disciplines and luckily stopped doing them before they stoped me from doing them. I guess I was born with a big bag of luck because I have been using it a lot!

Currently my biggest interest is in gardening. As a hobby, I develop/maintain bonsai trees and create other works of art out of living plant materials. I've also recently got interested in sewing. I'm interested in learning how to make my own tents and outdoor equipment as well as creating commercial designs such as marine canvas for boats and custom house sun shades.

Along with my need to be physical outdoors I have a very quiet introspective side. I've been studying for a number of years about Eastern religious thought and trying to find a synthesis (as so many before me have) between "East and West". I believe each as its own unique value and want to be able to point out the good in both and not put one against the other. The philosophy of Tao and Advaita Vedanta have been my main interests.

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Irene is self-employed as an artist and has starting to move toward figuring out ways to diversify her business. She is working on creating time-lapse videos of her "workflow" with the intention of not only bringing interest to her work but also with the hopes to inspire people to be creative and experimental. She is also wanting to develop international painting courses in the future and we are hoping that through workaway we will be able to meet like minded people who can help both of us to be able to grow in ways which we would have never expected.

As mentioned above she is profoundly good at making people feel loved, welcome, and appreciated. (Lucky me!) Her social skills come from a happy big heart. The origin of her name is Greek and it means "peace". I don't think her parents named her with this in mind but it absolutely fits to her character.

Etwas mehr Information

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  Spezielle Ernährung
  We are both vegetarian but if you like meat.. enjoy!