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Help at our guesthouse and experience Karoo desert life

5.0
(6 reviews)6

The experience

Enjoy our quiet, remote desert farmhouse and guesthouse, in exchange for helping with assorted building and household chores! We adapt tasks for volunteers' skillsets. Some common projects include building wooden cabins, working on our social media and marketing, preparing and planting flowerbeds, miscellanious handyman tasks, and music creation with our talented 17-year-old pianist. Please note animal care is not a part of this position.

What you offer

25 hours of help per week

Painting & Decorating: Help with painting or decorating the property facilities.

Building & Repairing: Help with a wide range of repairs or building.

Gardening: Help grow plants and cultivate gardens

What you get

2 days off per week

Private Room: You will have a bed in a private room. In other words, a room just for you.

Breakfast: You are entitled to a free breakfast, every day of your stay.

Lunch: You are entitled to a free lunch, every day of your stay.

Dinner: You are entitled to a free dinner, every day of your stay.

Free Laundry: You can use our laundry room freely.

Bikes at your disposal: You can use our bikes any time you want.

Pick Up: We will pick you up when you arrive, and take you to our property.

Use our equipped kitchen: Feel free to use our kitchen and make your own delicious food.

Basic Internet Access: Basic speed internet for you to work remotely

Requirements

Fluent English

Between 18 and 30 years old

Welcomes solo volunteers, couples, and partners of volunteers

What's not included

Flights, Travel Insurance, Internal Transportation and Visa

Program Details

We are a family of five, and several staff work for us daily. We aren't reliant on Workawayers to keep our guesthouse running, but instead use volunteers to help us develop new projects and improve our guesthouse.

We love it when volunteers come to us with ideas of what to work on and how to improve our farm, and we adapt all tasks to your interests and skillsets. Not sure if we need someone with your skillset? Reach out and ask! We are happy to chat.

A few of the tasks we hope to have volunteers help with:
- We have various repair tasks that need to be done around the farm, including painting, sanding, and other handyman maintenance work.
- We'll soon be starting on a project to build additional wooden cabins on our land and could use assistance from handymen/handywomen
- We have a neglected garden that would love some tender care and attention
- Our social media could always use help in the realm of content creation and marketing
- We have a 17-year-old talented pianist son who would love a musically-gifted partner to jam with

Please note that aside from occasionally walking the dogs and throwing a bucket of food to the sheep, we do not have animal care tasks for volunteers. We are a farmhouse, but not a true farm!

Activities & Shift

Daily activities vary significantly depending on what a specific volunteer is interested in working on. That said, this is roughly what the daily schedule has looked like for previous Workawayers:

Monday-Friday:
- 7:30 am, up to help make breakfast and set the table
- 8, family breakfast
- 8:30/9, start work on your daily projects (be it social media, building, repair work, etc.)
- 12/1, make yourself lunch when desired
- 1-3, finish work on your daily projects
- 3-6:30/7, relax, enjoy the Karoo, play with our dogs, etc.
- 7, family dinner & TV time
- 8-?? evening relaxation time

Our Workawayers usually take the weekends off, just joining us for breakfast at around 9 or 10 and family dinner at the usual time.

Please note this schedule is just to give you an idea of what our days look like. We are happy to be flexible and accomodate your needs.

Rules

We offer our guests a tranquil, quite space to relax, so no loud music/TV is allowed.

We are in a semi-remote desert area, so please be aware there are no bars/clubs/etc. nearby. However, there are trails where you can run/bike/walk safely!

Please ensure daily showers and regular clothing changes are observed during your stay. You can use our laundry for free, whenever you'd like.

If you have dietary preferences or requirements, please let us know in advance so we can be sure to stock food you can eat! We have one gluten-free eater in the house but the rest of our family do not have dietary restrictions. If you are a vegan or vegetarian and do not like seeing meat, this may not be the placement for you.