an open letter to our wwoofing host

Dear Paola,

Thank you for hosting Áine and I at your garden for the last two and a half weeks. I just wanted to offer a few constructive criticisms regarding our time there. Specifically, I want to talk about your management style, and your tone regarding the language barrier.

I wonder if you're situation is very appropriate for WWOOFers. Your whole property is beautiful, of course, and I loved waking up in our tent on the hill and watching the clouds move through the Dolomites across the valley. The land's steep slope tired out my legs, but it was good training for our upcoming pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. What makes me wonder how well WWOOFers can fit into your garden, though, is how idiosyncratic your gardening methods are. Your garden seemed to me a disorganized, haphazard collection of vegetables and some plants I didn't know. Though it's not big — a quarter acre? — it took me half my time there to find the pond in the middle. The thing is, your garden may have been an intricately inter-cropped ecosystem, each plant quite functional — but since you didn't give me any orientation within the garden, I saw no order and was consistently confused when you asked me to do any task in there. Where were the nasturtium I was supposed to pick? All the carrots I could find for lunch were tiny; was there another patch with full-sized ones?

Outside the garden, on the hillside you had us clearing, your vision was even less clear. Sometimes you were maddeningly vague. "Build a compost toilet," was one job. "Make a gate out of this scrap fencing," was another. You would give desultory instructions and sometimes bring tools or materials, but the fence ended up being built by your husband and son in an entirely different way (for which I'm happy). Other times you were overly finicky about how things were done, but wouldn't explain the specific way you wanted something done until after I'd been at it for an hour. When you discovered my errors you acted as though I had wasted your time; really it was a waste for us both. Miscommunication and error are to be expected in a WWOOFing arrangement, since you're having new workers every week or so. If you're going to be continuously disappointed, maybe WWOOFing isn't for you.

Miscommunication underlay many of the difficulties on the farm, which makes sense because there was a huuuuge language barrier.  You speak only a few words of English (the most memorable of which are, "Ees no good!" every time I did anything...) And Áine and I speak an eensie-weensie bit of Italian. As we noted in our letter to you, we spoke little Italian and were WWOOFing in part to learn some of your language. (Actually, the prospect of gaining the basics of a new language convinced me to WWOOF after years of skepticism).

Now, the language barrier is a doozie. We've been butting up against it the whole time we've been in Italy. Áine has been better than me, tucking words and phrases away to bust out. While we worked in your garden she would listen to Italian langauge lessons on her iPod, booming out Italian phrases into the tomato patch she was weeding. But once we were inside, all the slight, mood-lightening conversation she tried to make only seemed to stress you out. During meals I would stare at my soup to avoid all but the most crucial communication. At its best the language barrier can be an ongoing comedy of errors, kindergarden meets charades. But on your watch it was a constant energy drain. The last days of our time in the garden drove this home: you went on vacation and left the house in care of your sister. With her warmth and understanding, we spoke more in two days with her than we did in two weeks with you, and surprised ourselves at how well we could communicate.

I'm sorry if this letter is a bit harsh. You don't read English, of course, and I'm not going to tell you about it, so it's more for me to let go of a mediocre three weeks than to actually have you change anything about your situation for future WWOOFers.

I was not a very good worker on your farm.  When it seems impossible to please the person you're working for, when it's clear they don't trust you, you're not moved to do good work. I cut corners when I could, taking extra trips to the house, long snack breaks, moving slow. I'm not proud of the work I did, and can only hope that your next WWOOFers can perform their tasks to your satisfaction and, perhaps, break the cycle of mistrust that existed between us.

sincerely,
Paolo