Travelling and working with WWOOF, May/June2010, Host 1

After the Landrover was finally ready to go I decided to spend summer in Europe . The main reason doing so was to find out what else at the car had to be fixed or changed before heading for Africa.

The first days I just spent at the beach close to Bordeaux in France. I love this area. The beaches and the huge pine forests are just beautiful and I really needed some time to relaxe. Yes, and I spent the first night in the roof tent. Fantastic.
Look at this beautiful beaches. If you don´t know them it is really worth going there. From Bordeaux you have to head straight towards the sea you will find yourself in Le Porge plages. After one week I felt it was enough relaxing.
Before heading off I had to adjust the steering box. It had a little bit to much play in it. The next two days I spent driving. The car was doing alright. Except for the brake servo. It gave up. Braking ever since was hard work. I need to look for some spare parts to fix it.
France, especially the northern part and the Ardennes in Belgium are a very beautiful area. Very green, open fields mixed with forests and almost totally abandoned.
At six a clock on a Sunday evening I arrived at Wereldwerf in Olen/Belgium the first WWOOF host I decided to stay. There are two different regions in Belgium. The Flemish Region and the Walloon Region, Olen is located in the Flemish Region.
I had a warm welcome from Hasan and Alex and Halil. Hasan and Alex WWOOFers as well and Halil a friend of Hasan. Hasan is from Izmir in Turkey and was already staying for 9 month. Alex is from the UK. They were both very good company.
The place is called Wereldwerf (world yard) because there are people from different parts of the world working at the same project. The project is actually based on many small projects. So there is a kindergarten, an old peoples home, a very well equiped wood workshop, a vegetable garden, a cafe which is turened over by Carina, Charles´wife and the WWOOF facilities. The first morning I met as well Maurice. He is an all-rounder turning up on Mondays and Tuesdays and leading the practical side of the project.
The days started with Charles´ "phenomenal" knowledge of blowing the bagpipe to wake everybody up.
After the day opening, which included singing and dicussions what we did the day before and what we are planning to do this day, we started a 6 hours daily work interupted by Lunch.

Sometimes after work Carina invited us for diner in the cafe. She is mainly doing spanish Tapas. Honestly one of the best dinners I´ve ever had. Everything homemade. Delicious.
And not to forget Sabrina who was in charge of the book-keeping.
My main occupation was clearing the grounds like trimming and working on the future kindergarten like digging foundations, and painting and oiling wood.
The evening were rather quiet. Olen is a very calm place. After 8.00 pm there is hardly some movement on the streets. But I discovered a game called draughts which we played often after work. I have to admit, Alex was mostly winning.
On the 19th Hasan was leaving for a trip to Riga and Helsinki. So I had to say good-bye to him as I will not be here anymore when he will return. Hasan is finishing his stay in Belgium on the 30th of June. He will go back to Izmir/Turkey after almost one year WWOOFing in Belgium.

One weekend I had to spend fixing the Landrover. The injectionpump was in need of adjustment and the vacuumpump had a broken diaphragm. I managed to fix the diaphragm with a peace of rubber which we used in the garden to protect the cabbage from the cabbage fly. The brakes work absolutly brilliant.
The three weeks of my stay passed by very quickly. I am not sure but maybe I will come back to this place later in the year. But for now I have to leave. I am going to move to another place close to Gent.
Thank you all very much for the very nice time I had.
The link underneeth will lead you the photo gallery on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/constructafrica/sets/72157624189901985/