Join our island family and help with our home and garden in Victoria, Canada

Details

• 

  Description

  Family looking for kind volunteers to help with childcare, exploring and adventuring around our cute little island city together, and cleaning, cooking and gardening.

• 

  Types of help and learning opportunities

  Language practice

  Gardening

  DIY and building projects

  Babysitting and creative play

  Creating/ Cooking family meals

  Help around the house

  General Maintenance
• 

  Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

  Our family of four, plus often a female international student that we host, loves to meet new people and hear about their adventures and perspectives on the world. Our kids (born in 2009 and 2012) are in French Immersion at school so practicing french (though they are shy) is a great opportunity for us. Practicing Spanish would also be fun!
  We have traveled a fair amount before we had our children, and with them, and love to dream about future journeys. We love to go adventuring around our little island city, and enjoy the beaches, parks, hikes, bike trails, unique cafes and restaurants, and attractions this city offers.
  Before kids, we spent 3 years as working holidaymakers in Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand, and countless months on international exchanges, backpacking, hitchhiking and couchsurfing around alot of the world, so we have a sense of what folks new to Victoria are looking for in an experience in a new culture. We also sponsor refugees and enjoy bringing different understandings of the world into our home and conversation with our family.

• 

  Projects involving children

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

• 

  Help

  We are looking for volunteers to assist with housecleaning, gardening, childcare, picking our daughters up from school, and cooking some family meals, as well as other projects that may come up.

• 

  Languages

  Languages spoken
  English: Fluent
  Spanish: Intermediate
  French: Beginner

  This host offers a language exchange
  This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
  You can contact them directly for more information.
• 

  Accommodation

  "Lost Girls' Hideout" is a tiny, bright cabin with a cute covered porch in our back garden, surrounded by rhododendrons, blossoming trees, and teacup bird feeders. It has wifi, electicity, a portable heater, a double futon to use as a bed or sofa (as hard as futons usually are), an antique mirrored dresser, and a small farmhouse table/desk with a chair, an old rocking chair, and plenty of fairy lights. There is also a high loft bed up a steep ladder that you can sleep on and use the lower futon as a sofa. The cabin has no running water, you have to come into our house to use the kitchen and bathroom, it is about 8 meters to our back door. In our home, we have a bathroom downstairs with a shower, sink and toilet, and the main bathroom on our main floor. You are welcome to use our laundry facilities, and our kitchen. We try to keep a good stock of all the breakfast and lunch foods that you may need to prepare for yourself, and you are welcome to share our simple omnivorous family meals in the evening with us if you wish, sometimes take out, sometimes leftovers, or you can prepare your own if you have special dietary requirements. You can use our yoga mats and can borrow our bicycles, and use our guitars and piano if you are musically inclined.
  The futon/sofa is a double, so technically two people can share it, but the cabin is very tiny, less than 100 square feet (about 9 square meters), so it would be very tight to have a couple stay in it as you would be stepping on each other's toes alot of the time.
  We have a small self-contained suite attached to the back of our house with a nice tenant living in it. You probably would not see much of each other unless you bump into each other on the sidewalk going to our back garden where the cabin and suite both are located.

• 

  What else ...

  There is a decent bus system in Victoria, and we are centrally located with buses direct to downtown a half block from our home. There is a shopping centre one block away with most everything someone needs (bookstore, post office, bank, grocery store, hardware store, pharmacy, clothing stores, cafe). Victoria is an easy city to see by cycling, and you can borrow our bikes, there are many bike lanes, and some great bike trails such as the Galloping Goose, which you can cycle from Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal to downtown Victoria and all the way out to Sooke, probably 100kms from end to end nearly. There is bus service from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal to within one block of our house (two buses, one hour, but only 2 mins walking). Beaches and parks are an easy cycle or nice walk away.
  On your days off, you could journey to the farther reaches of Vancouver Island such as Tofino, Sooke, Port Renfrew, Vancouver, the Gulf Islands, and there is camping all over.
  We love to adventure and explore on weekends or in little bursts after school or in the evenings if we have time, and you are generally welcome to join us. Mike is an electrical engineer and works from home. I am a support worker for two ladies with disabilities. We regularly host female international students as part of our family. We love to cycle, hike, camp, travel most of all, have interesting conversations that grow our perspective, go out for a drink, craft and make art, dragonboat, kayak and outrigger canoe, do yoga, explore new places, and watch our daughters explore at the beach. We volunteer sponsoring refugees in our community and supporting people with disabilities to go on nature adventures.

• 

  A little more information

  • 

    Internet access

  • 

    Limited internet access

  • 

    We have pets

  • 

    We are smokers

  • 

    Can host families

• 

  Can host digital nomads

  This host has indicated that they love having digital nomads stay.

• 

  Space for parking camper vans

  We have street parking In front of our house if needed.

• 

  How many Workawayers can stay?

  One

• 

  Hours expected

  Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week

Feedback (5)