Volunteer with a family in Mallorca, Spain

Spain

Favourited 196 times

Host rating
Feedback
12
Last activity
22/10/2020
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Availability

2020

Min stay requested: at least 1 month

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Description
Please only contact us if you can spend at least one month here. We are looking for help in the garden and with construction projects. We speak English at home, live in the country with a good amount of outdoor space and tranquility but are 2 minutes (by car) from the third largest city in the center of Mallorca (Inca). We are also 20 minutes from the capital of the island (Palma). The price of the train/bus (1.5 kms from home) to most of the places on the island varies: single trips are expensive (3 euros) but if you get a train card you can buy 40 trips (to use within 45 days) it costs 45.80 euros ( 1.15 euros per trip) and if you buy 20 trips to use within 1 year it costs 30.40 euros (1.52 euros per trip).
Types of help and learning opportunities
Gardening
DIY and building projects
General Maintenance
Help with Eco Projects
Help around the house
Help
There is work outside (gardening, etc.) and we have some construction projects we would like to finish, so somebody with experience in construction would be a plus.
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Spanish: Fluent
Accommodation
Private room, kitchen and bathroom in separate house (adjacent to our house) in the countryside. We will lend the workawayers bicycles to move around (deposit required). About the Internet: we use our Internet for work, but we like to offer it to the Workawayers who stay with us as a courtesy because we know it can be a help for them to stay connected with email and to look things up on the Internet, but it should not be used for downloading movies, music, constant video calls like skype (a little is okay), or other high-bandwidth or illegal internet uses because these cause problems for us (we will know if these activities are happening on our network). If a workawayer does this we then have to stop providing internet and they have to go to an Internet cafe or a library to get internet and this would also make the living situation and our relationship more difficult, so please be responsible. Thanks! You can get lots of movies for free from the local library and we also have lots of DVDs (mostly cartoons) that we can lend you that are good especially if you are trying to learn English or Spanish..
What else ...
Another reason why we need couples is because we are very busy and don't have much time to spend with workawayers, that's why we will give you 50 € a week (total for both Workawayers) and you can buy and cook your own food.

This way you can be with each other during your free time, explore the island together and have touristy adventures. We have already seen the island and can't take workawayers to the touristy places we have already been many times. Sundays would be the only day we could spend time with you if you want to go somewhere with us (unless we are invited to a friend's house and we can not include you). Otherwise we will ask you if you want to come with us when we have an outing.
A little more information
- Internet access
- Limited internet access
- We have pets
- We are smokers
- Can host families
How many Workawayers can stay?
Two
Hours expected
5 hours a day (Monday through Friday).

Photos

Bedroom in another building with a double bed and a sofa/bed under it.

Jeremy, Maria and Gabriel at one of the most fun places on Mallorca - Katmandu Park.

Workawayers' private bathroom.

Birthday party in our kitchen.

Outside of our house.

Show all photos

Driveway.

Jeremy and our son (Gabriel) at the entrance of our house.

Feedback left by and about host (12)

07/09/2016

Left by Workawayer (Emiliana & Dario) for host

We spent a month with Jeremy , Maria , Gabriel and Lolo was a very enriching experience , where we learned many new things. We made a lot of gardening , cook , paint, etc.
Others Workawayers who want to go we recommend they know that work is strict , requiring effort and be punctual with the schedule.
The house is well equipped , walking to… read more

(Very good )

26/06/2015

Left by host for Workawayer (Harri)

Harri was one of the smartest and most skillful Workawayers we have had. He initially came to stay with us from September to December but was so helpful that after he went away for a business trip we agreed on having him come back in February for a couple more months.

After an initial conversation he could understand a project completely and… read more

(Excellent )

25/06/2015

Left by Workawayer (Harri) for host

Better later than never.. to leave a feedback as well :)
I stayed almost 4 months out of a 6 month period with Maria, Jeremy, Gabriel and Lolo. For me, they were the nicest people I have met in my life. Responsible for their own life and very accommodating towards the people staying at their place. Also helpful with anything people were… read more

(Excellent )

25/06/2015

Left by host for Workawayer (Martina & Vincenzo)

When we first read Martina and Vincenzo's profile it seemed like they didn't have many skills that would be useful to us. Since we did have some projects where skillful work was not necessary we had them come home anyways.

As time went by (they were with us for almost 3 months) we realized that they were very good at doing anything we asked… read more

(Excellent )

22/06/2015

Left by Workawayer (Martina & Vincenzo) for host

Nuestra primera experiencia workaway... ciertamente interesante de aspectos evolutivos.
Gracias a Jeremy y María podemos aprender un español (nuestro principal objetivo de esta experiencia), descubrimos que la cocina macrobiótica... realmente interesante sobre todos los aspectos de la salud y los beneficiarios de bienestar y muy buena con platos… read more

(Excellent )

01/05/2015

Left by host for Workawayer (Tara-lee & Pierre David)

When the Hollander family wrote to us saying they were "ready to come home" we felt a little scared and wondered if we were making a crazy decision because we had never had a whole family stay with us before. Well, we can say we are very lucky to be this crazy because having them here has been one of the best decisions we have ever made in our… read more

(Excellent )

27/04/2015

Left by Workawayer (Tara-lee & Pierre David) for host

Maria, Jeremy, Gabriel and Lolo made us feel so welcome! We spent a few weeks with them and enjoyed our time tremendously! We loved the set times for work and the project based way they worked - we all knew what to do and what was expected of us. The food was great! Our whole family felt healthier and stronger eating the Macrobiotic food prepared… read more

(Excellent )

28/02/2015

Left by host for Workawayer (Rose)

Rose has been one of the best workawayers we have had. She spent 3 months with us and she worked on and finished many amazing things in our house.

She was always on time when starting to work and always tried to do her best when giving her a project. Since she is an artist we felt very comfortable giving her jobs that required a good final… read more

(Excellent )

16/09/2014

Left by host for Workawayer (Beñat & Lia)

We are a little surprised by this review and will try to answer fairly and honestly to the criticisms they present based on our experience. For those who do not speak Spanish they present 3 criticisms. They say that they did not get to spend time with us outside of working hours to practice English, that they had some trouble moving around the… read more island and that they did not have a cook surface in their space. Here is what we experienced:
The comment about speaking English we find a little strange. When they arrived we met them speaking in English and all our email communication with them had been in English. Within 5 minutes of picking them up from the airport, though, they requested to speak in Spanish, at which point we directly warned them that once you choose a language, it is difficult to switch back, but that they could let us know when they wanted to speak English again. They never mentioned any interest in speaking in English with us again during their stay. If they had requested it or made an effort to use their English, we would have made an effort to communicate in that language. I think they were shy to practice their English, which is fine, but they are the ones responsible for the amount of English they spoke with us, and it seems outlandish to imply that we made it difficult for them to practice with us when, if anything we did the opposite. They also did not make any use of the movies, books and other materials in English we provide, nor try to speak with our son in English, even though he spent lots of time with them and is probably the best English teacher in the house. They requested the first day that we hook up Spanish TV for them and they spent all their free time at home watching TV in Spanish.
When Beñat and Lia contacted us they also told us they were going to come for one month (that's the minimum stay we ask for in our profile so we can plan our projects).The day they arrived they told us they had to leave in 3 weeks for a wedding, we were not happy about that because they were coming to help us with a specific project that we hoped to finish or mostly finish during their stay, but we didn't want to start our relationship on a bad note and didn't say anything about it and tried to work around this constraint that they misled us about before they arrived.
They expressed they wanted to rent a car to explore the island (well actually first they suggested we should buy a motorcycle for them to use, even though they made constant use of our bikes!). We tried to help them to enjoy their stay in the way they thought they wanted and researched rental cars for them on the internet. We found out the price was much cheaper renting for a whole week than on the 3 weekends they were going to be here. We offered to give them the last week of August off if they finished the project they came to do (building a kitchen for the workawayer's house) working their 75 hours in 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks. If our proposal didn't seem possible to them then we said we should leave the amount of hours for the 3 weeks as they were (25 hours a week) so that we could do the things we knew how to do in between the jobs we didn't know how to do (and they did) so that between their work and our work we would finish the project. Long story short, they chose to work two intensive weeks to finish the project to take the last week off and rented a car and had their vacation but they left us with the project unfinished. They even insisted on working on a day we asked them not to work to give us more time when it became clear they weren't going to finish on time.
We find it ridiculous that they complain about not having more than a professional relationship with us because they saw we had to work 14-16 hours a day/7 days a week to try and finish the project in two weeks. We killed ourselves working to give them a week vacation, which is not something most people would do, yet we did to be good hosts even though it was detrimental to us on many levels. We would have needed to not sleep at all to be able to spend time with them. During our normal days we are usually really busy with our regular jobs and don´t have much time for leisure, but when they were here we had to work all day into the evening and even during the weekends (our regular jobs and then doing construction so that they could take their week off). We were so exhausted from working so many hours we didn't have any energy left to have a relationship not only with them but with anybody. When they took their week's vacation they also spent the entire week away from the house, only coming home to sleep, so spending time with us was certainly not their priority.
We just found out there is a closer bus station next to the new hospital that is 10 minutes walking from home (1.5Km). We don't know if this would have changed anything because they made it clear they wanted their own vehicle, but it is certainly not 3.5 km to reach the nearest public transportation from our house.
We are sorry we couldn't provide them with a stove to cook in their kitchen but they had a microwave and told them they could use our kitchen whenever they needed it (and they did use it many times). Any workawayers that come never need to cook food unless they want to eat meat because we provide fully cooked meals that only need to be warmed up. These guys wanted to eat meat and other foods, which it clearly states in our profile that we don't provide. Our profile also shows that their space contains a refrigerator, a sink and a microwave only, so we are not sure why they feel it was a surprise not to have a stove or oven in their kitchen.
We found overall that, while they did bring energy to their work, they had an overall attitude of being critical in a way that is self-serving, feels dishonest and took all the fun and possibility for fun out of the experience. After the tremendous effort we made to try and make their stay go exactly the way they wanted, this review makes it clear that they were not grateful for what we did. They ended up leaving having gotten everything they requested from us but we neither got the project finished, had them stay for our minimum required stay, nor even got any gratitude for all the favors we did for them. Instead they chose to write a critical review that has no real basis in the truth of the experience they had, and this is disheartening.

(Neutral )

03/09/2014

Left by Workawayer (Beñat & Lia) for host

Ha sido nuestra primera experiencia en Workaway y nuestra valoración es regular. Hemos estado un mes en Mallorca y el trato que hemos tenido ha sido puramente profesional. Nos hubiera gustado tener más relación y contacto con ellos para poder aprender nuevas cosas, ya que la práctica del inglés era nuestro principal objetivo del viaje. Con Gabriel… read more

(Neutral )

28/05/2014

Left by host for Workawayer (Tomek & Michalina)

Michalina and Tomek took the work we gave them as a personal challenge and cared about each project as if they were doing work in their own house.

We really enjoyed their company and came to consider them as close friends/family. Wherever they go they will be welcome because of their exceptional qualities, intelligence and "can do" attitude… read more

(Excellent )

09/05/2014

Left by Workawayer (Tomek & Michalina) for host

We've spent 5 months with those guys and it was a great time! They are friendly, welcoming and we had a lot of fun with them - especially Gabriel kept us amused all the time :) We've learned much from them about healthy and "Do It Yourself" way of living :)

They have the qualities that rarely come together: they are very open and easy-going on… read more

(Excellent )

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Host ref number: 438331965998

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