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

Infos

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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 of 8 and 9 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 we both teach. 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 starting a project to make our farm a rehabilitation ranch. For 2025, we are planning to provide disabled persons with both physiotherapy and equinotherapy sessions at the ranch, combining it with any required reparation or fabrication of orthopedic devices .
  We also plan to install a fitness trail to promote healthy lifestyle and opportunity to outdoor activities in a secured area, within the ranch. A viewpoint was built this year by workawayers who fullfilled one dream, now the next step is a small coffeeshop (built out of palets o customized old minibus / horse trailer- which we still didn't find) and a covered space to allow Yoga retreats, or therapeutic education seminars for diabetic people, for example.
  A lot of all this is not ready though , as we are starting from scratch. There is still a lot of building, horse education and training to do.
  The ranch already counts with 18 horses, most of them young, a bunch of cows 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!
  With our work in the private practice and education consulting - plus the kids - we don't have much time to get things done at the ranch, so we need people with ideas in how to run a small ranch, 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' homework & language teaching and perhaps taking the husky out for a run!
  
  We are also looking for long-term person with horse 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 !
  
  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!)
  
  We are looking forward to welcome your motivation and energy to participate in the project!

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  Types d'aide et opportunités d'apprendre

  Pratique d’une langue

  Enseignement

  Bricolage et construction

  S’occuper des animaux

  Aide dans une ferme

  Cuisine/repas pour la famille

  Aide à la maison

  Aide informatique/internet
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  Echange culturel et opportunités d'apprendre

  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, planning to start sessions with disabled persons by mid- 2024.
  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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  Projets impliquant des enfants

  Ce projet peut impliquer des enfants. Pour en savoir plus, consultez nos directives et conseils ici.

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  Aide

  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 for the kids' education to get some freetime 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, even the entrance main gate with sign needs to be done properly.
  On a more heavy building side, the small coffee shop corner, 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 supporting the homework, or involving them in projects on the farm. 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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  Langues parlées

  Anglais: Courant
  Espagnol: Courant
  Français: Courant
  Allemand: Intermédiaire

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  Hébergement

  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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  Autres infos...

  The farm is at biking/walking distance from the village nearby, where you can buy all necessary items. For more specific needs, a car 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, and the success of our project also depends on a behavior based on respect and cultural sensitivity from our visitors.

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  Informations complémentaires

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    Accès Internet

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    Accès Internet limité

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    Nous avons des animaux

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    Nous sommes fumeurs

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    Familles bienvenues

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  Possibilité d’accueillir les digital nomads

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

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  Espace pour garer des vans

  Cet hôte a de la place pour les vans.

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  Combien de volontaires pouvez-vous accueillir ?

  Deux

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  Nombre d'heures attendues

  5 hours / day, 5 days a week

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