Carmen

Spain
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Profile information

Travel information
I am currently
Travelling
My next destination:
India - from Mar 2024 until May 2024
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Description
Hey!
My name is Carmen, I'm 21 years old and come from a rural region of Spain called Extremadura. I just finished my bachelor degree so i'm looking to take a break from the academic type of learning and learning on my own from places, people and cultures. I have spent these last three years in the Netherlands doing my degree with people from all over the world so I'm used to travelling and adapting to different ways of doing things. I love reading and painting, music of any kind and I'm looking forward to explore any place. I've grown up in the countryside so I'm used to dealing with animals - mainly dogs and horses - and I dont mind some hard work. I love meeting people and going out to museums concerts or to the pub but I'm also ready to spend a quiet couple of months in nature.
Basically, I'm happy to adapt to anything - one learns the most from the things they are not used to!
Interests
Van life
Sustainability
Sailing / Boating
Nature
Outdoor activities
Pets
Movies & TV
Mountain
Hitchhiking
Languages
Farming
Culture
DIY & crafts
Writing
Music
History
Events & social
Drawing & painting
Charity work
Cooking & food

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Languages
Languages spoken
English: Fluent
Spanish: Fluent
Italian: Fluent
French: Beginner
More details about my language interests
I love languages! I'm down to learn anything, even if only a few words. i understand other people must think like me so I'm happy to teach anyone Spanish which is my mother tongue or help out with english.
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Skills and knowledge I'd like to share or learn
I'm interested in:
Charity Work
Eco Projects
Being an elderly companion
Teaching
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Hospitality/Tourism
Some knowledge of:
Art Projects
Animal Care
Life at a Farmstay
Creating/ Cooking family meals
Helping around the house
General Maintenance
Able to teach about:
Languages
More details about your skills
Dealing with animals
Dealing with kids
Cooking
Cleaning
Painting/drawing
I'm quite good at helping out in general I think, I like doing it and I'm a fast learner!
Age
23
Some more information
- Smoker
- Driver's licence
- Allergies
- Special dietary requirements

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15 Nov 2022

Left by Workawayer (Carmen) for host (Help me with gardening and ...)

Everything is great! Eoghan is super nice, very kind and accommodating. He will be happy to let you know all the cool places in the area and even go with you if he is not busy with work. Work is easy enough - paint a room here and there, move stuff around, organize, gardening, etc. Around 2-4 hours a day depending on the day and what has to be… read more

(Excellent )

21 Oct 2022

Left by Workawayer (Carmen) for host (Help on our racing and pre ...)

You don't really get anything of what is written here on the site.
You will work for 8-9 hours. Start at 8:30 , have lunch at around 1:30 with a one hour break and then continue until 17:30-18. There is a few necessary things that need doing everyday but once you finish those they come up with more horses to ride, or more things to clean. Which… read more could be acceptable if you have people working for you which you pay, not young workaway girls.
Which leads me to the next thing - you do not get paid. I wrote to them and asked before going and they did tell me that there was no wage, but we had "pocket money". Other places have the same policy but the pocket money you get (considering again that you are working a full-time job) is around 100e, here you get 20. You also only have Sundays off which was not what Louise told me through message - which was that I would get the weekends off.

And the biggest problem - there is no apartment. The apartment exists, just over the timber barn like in the picture. They have just rented it out to a guy. So instead of living in the apartment you get to share the house with the parents, three kids and eight dogs. I was able to wash my clothes once in three weeks and you are only allowed to use the fast 30min program (which is not enough after days of human sweat, horse sweat, mucking out, rain, mud, etc). When we were drying our stuff in the drying rack they would just throw it in a basket even if it was not yet dry. There is only one toilet for the workaways. One of the 8 dogs that live in the house bit and broke the riding pants of one of the girls (which as I'm sure you know are expensive pants) and they only gave het a hat from their sponsor that they get for free as compensation. You live in a second floor where there are two rooms and a bed put in the middle of the hall which is open to the ground floor so whoever stays in that bed will not be able to sleep until absolutely everyone else in the house has gone to bed. When talking about the apartment they mentioned increasing the rent for the guy so I don't think is the apartment will be available soon.
As if this were not bad enough, while I was there we were 5 workawayers for two weeks and 6 for 5 days whicbh meant that I had to share my room (since I had the bigger one) with two people one of which I had to share my bed with. I had no problem with any of these girls, they are lovely. But you cannot have people working for you for 8-9 hours for half a bed. That's exploiting young girls whom you know probably don't have anywhere else to go and will be scared to have conflict.
It is was also funny to see how they managed to make us work the same hours whether we were 3 or 6 people. They gave more horses to ride to the girls that were there. Gave one girl the difficult horses that even the parent dont want to ride for her to work with. Or apart from the mucking out and feeding she would tell me to hoover the inside of her car or tack up her daughters' ponies.

Surely that deserves some information in the Workaway profile. Furthermore, although we had all messaged with her, at NO POINT did they think it was relevant to tell us any of this. I was lucky because I came with my own car and I found a different workaway but there are very young girls that travel to a different country by themselves just to find this.
If you want to take workaway as a place to find employees then you have to provide what you offer. I will work a set amount of hours only is you give me the benefits that you promised. MINIMUM a room in that apartment. There are other workaways where its more informal and you might just help around, you are more or less friends with whomever you are staying with and have to adapt to different workloads and different benefits depending on the situation. But here you have the worst of both worlds.

And the way she talked to us, she was though she was absolutely entitled to the work that we did although we didn't get anything of what she promised and has 6 people living where there is space for 2. she did not think that it would be fair to lower the workload or give some more benefits because of the bad conditions she had us in.

On the good side, if you like riding you will ride a lot. Maybe 2-3 or even 4 race horses everyday. You have to have a good level tho, and be okay with accepting the risk of riding young race horses. They will cook dinner for you and will provide food for lunck - you can ask for things and they will buy them. They bring you to Callan or pick you up from there when you need it. Overall I think you should really try to look for other horse-related workaways because this farm really works thanks to the free work of the young girls that come.

(Negative )

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