From: United States & France
Couple account
France, Guatemala, India, Mexico, Nepal, United States
01/10/2016 - 01/12/2019
299
Hello, we are Jason van atta, from Oregon USA and Hélène bazart, from montpellier France. We met in 2016 while backpacking in India. We fell in love and after travelling through south india from cochin to chennai, we decided to trek through Nepal together. We continued our adventure driving from the USA to Guatemala in 2017. We did work away on ranches in mexico and Guatemala to enable this journey.
We intend to travel long term and have sold our possesions and saved our money, changing our lifestyles to enable financial freedom. We are volunteering as we go to learn different cultures and ways of living, and to learn new skills to help create the future we dream of.
We are both 42 years old and have decided to use these years as an attempt to find quality in life by pursuing experience rather than material consumption.
Helene has a BA in social psychology, has worked in companies, associations as a social psychologist, making inquiries about human ressources and work organisation problematics, recruiting, animating training session, managing teams, and helping people to identify their skills (reorientation, searching work). She has also worked during the summer season in hotels (reception, housekeeping, serving breakfeast). She has also begun to learn traditionnal chinese medicine (basic principals, massage and qi gong) and is interested in learning more about alternative medecines. She has spent more than one year in india/sri lanka traveling and staying in ashrams to learn and practice yoga, meditation and also began to learn the indian traditional martial art of kalaripayattu. She has volonteered in a social ashram in Madurai helping with all the daily tasks (cleaning inside and outside, cooking) and in an organic farm (gardening, maintenance). She speaks french, english, and basic spanish.
Jason has been a forest fire fighter in America for the last 18 years working for the USA Government. His job requires hard physical labor in remote locations under high stress at times, while communicating well, remaining professional and building positive relationships. His Summer Job also requires a high level of punctuality and dependability.
After the summer fire season ends he travels internationally. He has backpacked and traveled in India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, as well as hitchhiking and traveling by car and living in a tent through 30 American states (USA), including Alaska, as well as the country of Canada. He is an experienced Traveler and a highly experienced outdoorsman. He is physically fit, and culturally adaptable. His main skills that he can bring to a volunteer assignment is his personality, which is friendly, authentic, soulful, and culturally flexible. He always learns the basic elements of the language in every country he travels to. He has extensive experience in hostel service as has volunteered in Guatemala, and Cambodia. As an experienced international traveler he can relate and communicate well with people from any country. He has extensive experience with horses and farming as he grew up on a ranch, and owned four horses of his own for several years. He is experienced in forest thinning, farming/irrigation, as well as daily care for horses, cattle and goats. He has picked fruit, built fence, fed stock animals, raised chickens, cooked in restaurants for work, repaired and maintained gravity fed water systems, performed general structure maintenance, taught English. He is also a musician and artist who can provide entertainment with any instrument in remote areas...
We are both travelers who like to share experiences with others, we like music (we both play guitar),we like to laugh and share/discover good food.
We easily make friendly relationships with people from all over the world.
We are known as positive, hardworking, well spoken people, that can adapt to and bridge cultural boundaries. We would be an asset to any tourism or farm business..
We have a strong work ethic, enjoy physical labor, and have a broad experience base. We are are also flexible, dependable, and knowledgeable enough to complete any project.
We enjoy volunteering because it enables us to trade labor for lodging while embedding us in the local area and culture as well as providing a simple and adventurous lifestyle.... we are also hoping to learn permaculture, and the skills needed to create a place for ourselves As we are living a lifestyle that allows us to be the change we hope to see in the world.
Gardening
Building
Elderly Companion
General Maintenance
Cooking / shopping
Farmstay
Other
Help with Eco project
Help in the house
Animal care
Helping with Tourists
Charity work
Language practice
Art project
Forestry, firefighting, Gardening, Farming, irrigation, animal husbandry, writing/editing, English and french teaching, bar-tending, cooking, Internet, artistry, musician, building maintenance, tour guide, customer service, housecleaning, driver, yoga initiation
English, French, basic Espanol
43 & 44
USA, France
Highly experienced travelers with excellent and proffessional people skills, who have a strong work ethic, enjoy physical labor, and have a broad experience base and who are also flexible, dependable, and knowledgeable enough to complete any project.
2017 workaway experience:
2 weeks Daily care of guesthouse and property santa maria mexico- cleaned rooms, planted garden, raked yard daily, built fire ring.
2 weeks cutting and stacking wood, built fire ring, cleaned & removed labels from 200 wine bottles for sculpture - huayacocotla mexico.
3 months housesitting and caring for 40 acres, 5 chickens, 2 dogs. And also working daily at evergreen horse ranch, removing ticks and feeding horses, shoveling manure and dog poo, cleaned puppy pen daily, building earthen dams to collect rainwater, fence repair and caring for cattle, chiapas mexico.
2 months at finca ixobel ecolodge and resort, poptun guatemala. building chicken hutches, cleaning ticks off and caring for 9 horses, kitchen cleaning and helping with guests translating in french and english, guiding cave tours, engraving wooden signs for cabanas, sanding and finishing doors. Sept 2017: oiled bar/tables, doors chairs, cleaned restaraunt &guest rooms, cleared weeds from parking lot at Travel Inn, majahual mexico.
2018- worked at anjali palace, mawari ho
Smoker
Driver's licence
Allergies
NO
Special dietary requirements
NO
