Join on a family farm and collaborate with people of different cultures in Tonacatepeque, El Salvador

Details

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  Description

  First of all, please excuse us if we cannot reply quickly to all of you, as we get a lot of messages from workawayers, now.
  
  We are a small family made up of a mixed couple (Salvadorian and Swiss), with 2 kids around 10 years of age, living in a little farm in El Salvador.
  Our professions are physiotherapist and orthoprosthetic technician, we work with disabled persons in our private practice and both used to teach, now working on some projects as consultants in fisical rehabilitation. We both have a humanitarian past, worked with different NGO and with the International Commitee of the Red Cross.
  However, we are also very much into ranch life, and started a project a few years ago to turn an abandonned farm into a rehabilitation ranch. We want to provide disabled persons with both physiotherapy and equinotherapy sessions at the ranch, combining it with any required reparation or fabrication of orthopedic devices. For the moment, therapy assisted with horses is on going at the ranch , but we still don't have physio or orthopedic workshops on site.
  
  A viewpoint was built by workawayers who fullfilled one dream, then a small coffeeshop that allow activities despite heavy rain, where we host birthday parties, weddings or group events. We had a few opportunities to host activities like a painting contest for kids and adults, or a story teller (losts of urban legends around here) , and in the future, we would like to offer more cultural events , and also imagine hosting some Yoga/Pilates classes or one-day retreats, open air cinema, live music nights , or on a much longer term, therapeutic education seminars for diabetic people, for example.
  
  We opened to the public in March 2025, with an objective of self-financing the animal care, and for the coming year, we are offering access to : spending a moment or the whole day at the farm to chill and walk, camping, short horseback tours in the farm, longer horseback tours outside the farm , riding lessons ( if volunteer teacher available) , therapy assisted with horses, possibility of renting for events, coffee and snacks.
  Meanwhile, we realize that people mostly enjoy sitting and having coffee and pupusas/tortillas /cheese on the viewpoint, on weekends and some nights in the week. Physical activity is really not the first option for now, but one of our challenges to make it attractive. So in the plans is the installation of a fitness trail to promote healthy lifestyle and opportunity to outdoor activities in a secured area, within the ranch.
  
  So... on the job description :
  - CARPENTERS NEEDED !! As we have started to live here 5 years ago, and all the wooden furniture and small building are coming to the end of what they can bear from the humidity and rain around here, there is a lot of reparing to to. Also, lately , most of the work we need to do is about building and woodwork, so people with skills fitting this area will be given priority, especially if able to adapt to using whatever materials and tools are available, because we cannot always go and buy materials (depending on the budget - if you are lucky you will arrive on a good moment, if not, you will have to compose with what is there and show your creativity!)
  - Building: There is still a lot of facilities to re-new or build (experience with cement and welding is a plus!) Same comment on the skills of being able to do things with what is on the site.
  - On the ranch itself: losts of horse education and training to do (natural horsemanship, ethiologic equitation) , horse prep for selling, craft materials for desensitization or for therapy. We have now 23 horses, half of them young ones.
  We are also looking for long-term person with natural horsemanship training skills , to help us and our cowboys prepare the horses for therapy and touring, as well as to teach us and the kids more equitation skills. This would probably be something different than just a workaway deal, mostly because it will require time and committment, but I mention it here in case someone is interested !
  - Cows' side: help is allways needed for fences, renewing/ re-organization of the installations, building shelters (the things that our staff do not "have" the time to do but are needed to developp the project) ,etc.
  - Water: there is a plan to install a system of water recuperation , according to skills of volunteers and current budget, it could be a project for skilled workawayers.
  - Painting : houses, coffeeshop decorations, there is often things to do on that side
  
  TApart from the horses, there is around 20 cows (including adults and young ones) and some goats. We have several half-free farm dogs around, as well as a female husky.
  
  The housing is simple, animal facilities are basic for the moment, in construction little by little, and nature is luxurious, with - according to the seasons- mango, avocado, banana, orange trees, some coffe and cacao trees, a huge tamarin , and more. The climate is tropical so we basically have 2 seasons , one with lots of rain, one without any, both seasons quiet hot.
  
  With our work in the private practice and education consulting - plus the kids - we struggle to find the time to get things done at the ranch, so we need people with ideas and initiative to renovate, free some farm areas in order to build new facilities, create and arrange things at the housing and facilities level, cleaning, some basic chores, help with kids' s outdoor activities & language teaching and perhaps taking the husky out for a run!
  
  We are looking forward to welcome your motivation and energy to participate in the project!

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  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Language practice

  Teaching

  DIY and building projects

  Animal Care

  Farmstay help

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  Hospitality/Tourism

  General Maintenance

  Help with Computers/ Internet

  House sitting
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  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  Living with us on the farm, you will interact and collaborate with people of different cultures: our ranch staff, all locals for the moment, other workawayers, and us , mixed couple (Salvadorian and Swiss), as well as with our friends and extended family passing by (can include French, Belgian, North American).
  As a parallel experience, you can learn to ride and work with horses , as we are preparing some of them for therapeutic equitation, as most of them are still young.
  If you have any health-related competence, such as yoga, or other fitness activity, you could also imagine to organize groups within the project, if the dates can be planned and secured in advance (a few months before) .
  We try to cook and eat as much as possible of the farm's and/or local market's products, fruits, goat milk and cheese, do our own smoothies, bread and so on, so any exchange of ideas on that side will probably enrich our common life.

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  Projects involving children

  This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.

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  Help

  Both human resources management and schooling are quite a challenge around here, so we are looking for help at the ranch development side, as well as to free us from some house chores, like cooking, or taking the husky out at the end of the day, to gain freetime for the homework supervision, and and for us to involve more into ranch development/management.
  
  a) On the farm side, there is a lot to do in building adequate boxes for horses, shelter for cows, enhancing roofs and water recuperation system, repairing and building paddocks, gates and barriers, building a new warehouse,
  On a more heavy building side, the small coffee shop van, the fitness trail, and the physiotherapy room are still waiting for hands : building, fixing, painting and carpentry skills all needed!
  There is also opportunity for creativity in furniture carpentry or gardening for someone enjoying it .
  For horse experts, we would love to have a lot of advice on handling, training and teaching : Short term or long term as mentionned above.
  
  b) About the kids' education, help is welcome such as involving them in projects on the farm, sport, teaching music and other arts. The goal is to complete their local education with a balanced mix of creativity , project-based learning with construction or science subjects inspired from what is available on the farm. Spanish would be a plus of course, but it can also be learned on the job. The kids will benefit of French or English speakers, and even other totally unknown languages, as already noticed with previous workawayers (German) .
  
  c) There is a quite some work also on the social media side, where we could use help, creating and updating content, and creating other visibility supports for our physical rehabilitation practice for example.
  
  d) Finally, we decided to add here the workshop for ortheses and prostheses, although it is 20 min far from the farm: there is much to do in inventory, building shelves, repairing floors, painting and designing marketing brochures/social media.

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  Languages spoken

  English: Fluent
  Spanish: Fluent
  French: Fluent
  German: Intermediate

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  Accommodation

  We have one dormitory with space for 4 persons in a near but separate house on the farm, where you may be alone or with coworkers. There is a room for online rentals in the same house, and a bathroom to share with coworkers and guests if there are.
  Beside the rooms there is a fridge, and a rehabilitated traditional oven. Otherwise meals can be taken with or without us in our kitchen, which is always accessible because in the outer part of our little house. Most of the workawayers did enjoy family life since we started in October 2021.

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  What else ...

  The farm is at biking/walking distance from the village nearby, where you can buy all necessary items. For more specific needs, a car or bus trip to the city supermarkets is mandatory. As we have our patients practice outside the village it is easy to combine. San Salvador and the "modern" city life is at one to 2 hours drive distance,- depending on traffic and season (tropical climate) . Public transportation are an interesting experience here and may not be recomended by foreign guidelines , but workawayers and other travelers visiting us did use them, and we also have reliable persons driving Uber around.
  Tourism is a lot concentrated at the beach in El Salvador where there are famous surf spots. This is at 2 hours drive distance and perfect for week-ends with friends. In the country side however, there are a lot of interesting sites, like volcanoes to climb, coffee farms to visit , rustic villages, country/village fairs, lakes perfect to paddle, and so on.
  Guatemala is also at driving distance, counting the whole day. Low cost flights can fly you to Nicaragua, or the Caribbean islands of Honduras for a nice rest.
  You can find organized group tours for places in El Salvador, or easily go by yourselves, as the security in the country has quiet improved recently. We may ourselves have the opportunity to go out with a workawayer, but to be sincere, we do not go out a lot, as we are at the beginning of a project, with not much resources, so trying to do as much as we can ourselves - which keeps us very busy at the farm.
  Also just be aware that in this country, one still needs to be well informed about some areas, or neighborhoods to avoid, especially at late hours, as El Salvador has been unluckily famous for being classified a dangerous country. Living here gives of course another perspective as the medias provide, less global, more specific on areas, nonetheless one has to be conscious of the context.
  
  Side note:
  It may seem logical, but out of experience we need to precise the following: please do not select us as workaway hosts if you need to party and drink a lot, as the farm is bit isolated, the nearby village and neighborhood are not a secure place for this kind of activities, our family lives on the farm, and the success of our project also depends on a behavior based on respect and cultural sensitivity from our visitors.

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  A little more information

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    Internet access

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    Limited internet access

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    We have pets

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    We are smokers

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    Can host families

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  Can host digital nomads

  Wifi connection without problems from both houses. I also work on line , so it is fast

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  Space for parking camper vans

  This host can provide space for campervans.

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  How many Workawayers can stay?

  Two

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  My animals / pets

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