My First (and only) Workaway Experience — My Wildest Travel Story.

I had planned a 5 month trip to Europe. I had travelled solo for 6 weeks around Eastern Europe and Russia, then was joined by my daughter for 2 months in Iceland, Morocco and Spain after which she flew back to Australia.

We said our goodbyes at Madrid Airport: a separation made traumatic because she was pulled aside and put through the third degree when she was checking in her suitcase. Why was she flying from Madrid to Tel Aviv, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Sydney before she arrived home in Brisbane? ( If you’re interested, she was using her frequent flyer points to fly home and Qantas puts you on their least busy flights.) Her suitcase was opened and searched. When she returned after I waited for an hour, she was sobbing. She told me what had happened to her when she checked in her suitcase. Oh my God, unbelievable. She was traumatised and I was shaken by her story.

We parted. I was spending the remainder of my holiday working as a nanny cum “fun” English teacher for a single mum with 4 children living in an old farmhouse about an hour out of Toulouse. We corresponded on the Workaway site for months before my arrival which got off to a bad start.

The bad start

I was still shaken by Stacey’s experience at Madrid Airport so when I picked up my suitcase at Toulouse, I noticed the lock had been removed and my pretty luggage tags had been taken also. “The bastards at Madrid airport,” I thought, “they’ve done the same thing to me as they did to Stacey.”

My original plan had been to catch the train out to the nearest village where my Workaway employer would collect me. Scratch that idea – the French trains were on strike. So she had to drive into the airport to pick me up. She wasn’t a confident driver and had never driven to the airport before. She didn’t come into the terminal to meet me but stayed with her kids in the car.

It took us at least an hour to find each other. I was calling her and describing where I was and vice versa. During this debacle, my phone rang with an unknown number — someone trying to sell me something — so I didn’t answer. My priority was finding my ride.

Toulouse airport is huge and has multiple car parks and at least 4 terminals. My flight came into terminal D; she was waiting at terminal B car park! Eventually, we found one another and started the long drive home by this stage, in the dark. We were both exhausted but she managed to rustle up something to eat and show me to my room upstairs. After eating, all I wanted was a shower and bed so I excused myself.

The day gets worse

When I opened my suitcase, I couldn’t find my toiletries bag. Then I looked at the clothes. They weren’t mine!!!! What the fuck? I had to go downstairs and tell my host what had happened. She helped me contact the airport – no mean feat – and we managed eventually to speak to someone who acknowledged that he had my red Samsonite suitcase. After several cheaper failures, I had finally decided to buy myself a really good suitcase. I had chosen red so it would stand out on the luggage conveyor amongst all the black and silver ones.

The owner of the suitcase I had taken had obviously had the same idea. She had realised my suitcase wasn’t hers and handed it in. The private call that I hadn’t answered had been the airport guy calling the number on my luggage tag to tell me I had the wrong bag! There was nothing more that could be done that evening but we were told to come to the airport at 3 pm the following day to make the exchange. My host couldn’t face driving to the airport again so she called a friend to drive me in.

I collected my suitcase with the lock and luggage tags intact. If it hadn’t been for Stacey’s traumatic experience at Madrid airport, I would have immediately recognised I had the wrong suitcase! They weren’t even the same size! They called the owner of the other suitcase, but she had flown to Lisbon. She didn’t want her suitcase to be left at the airport so we had to take it as well as mine.

It was organised that we bring that suitcase back to the airport the following Monday to hand back to its owner. Thankfully the friend offered to return it for me so I didn’t have to drive in again (and meet its owner.) She would have had a few choice French words to say to me, I’m sure.

So that was the start of my Workaway experience. Now you’ll understand why we didn’t get off to a good start.

It just keeps getting worse.

My host shows me around the house. I love it, apart from the bird who has free reign of the whole house, and the toilet! I don’t know what you call it — a composting toilet? — but it’s a bucket that you do your business in and then throw some wood chips over it. I have IBS so I’m not comfortable with this at all, especially when it fills up to overflowing. Thank God it’s not my job to empty it!

She asks me what I like to cook. I say I can’t cook. (I’ve already told her this in an email.) Oh, I thought you were joking. You have 6 kids. You must cook.

— Oh no! My husband did all the cooking.

First miscommunication. I did say I could wash the dishes and I swear she had a week’s worth waiting on my arrival. The sink is an old-fashioned enamel one and barely big enough to wash a saucepan, let alone the huge pot she uses for cooking ducks.

And the sink is low. I’m tall, so before I’d finished washing up, my back is killing me. She cooks everything from scratch. She does not have one processed item in her fridge or pantry. She buys fresh bread (yummy) and milk and butter from a neighbouring farm and fresh meat from somewhere else. She makes all her own organic detergent, soap and shampoo. A commendable effort in trying to be self-sufficient or looking after the planet or whatever, but the washing up detergent does not cut through the grease terribly well. I have to use boiling hot water too. My poor hands!

The little 5-year-old girl climbs into my bed early the next morning — naked. I thought she must’ve wet the bed but no, it turns out the mum, the 12-year-old boy and the 5-year-old girl all sleep in the same bed — naked. I suppose it saves on washing. The little girl doesn’t wear clothes at all in the house even when there are male visitors. She climbs up on her mum and does backflips down spreading her legs for all the world to see. I try not to look shocked.

The mum explains she has this new child-rearing theory that the kids do whatever makes them happy. Her two older children were brought up strictly and she considers she’s failed as a mum so now she’s teaching other mothers to be “supermums”. While she’s in her office doing this on the computer, I’m to teach the two kids (the older two have left — can you blame them?) English in a fun way. Well, that doesn’t happen.

Instead, I’m set to work cleaning the house. It’s a very big, very old stone house that may have been built in the 1800s and not easy to clean! The furniture is old too. I’m basically a slave. Workaway hours are 5 hours a day but I don’t stop from the moment I wake up until I crawl into bed at night. I don’t say anything until she asks me to clean another house on the property that belongs to her mother. I explain I just can’t do it. I’m too old to clean and I have a cleaning lady at home for my own house. We agree that she’ll get someone younger to clean that house if I’m prepared to share my bedroom with another Workaway person. My bedroom is huge and has room to sleep 6 people, so yes, that’s fine.

The 12-year-old boy refuses to speak any English with me and spends all day, every day out in the shed making knives. There’s a welder and heavens only knows what else out in that shed. Each night he comes in with another knife he’s made sharper than the previous day’s. He demonstrates how sharp by slashing paper in the kitchen. It’s the only thing he does — makes very sharp knives.

One night, the three of them have a screaming match in the kitchen. I’ve never seen – nor heard – anything like this. I’m not an only child I have two brothers and a sister and 6 kids of my own so I haven’t led a quiet secluded life, but this behaviour shocks me. The fact that the boy spends all day, every day making daggers and ignores my presence and refuses to understand my French is a little unsettling especially since there is no lock on my bedroom door. But I’m not a quitter. I can do this. If I can last 6 weeks, I can have my last week in Paris. I have Eurostar booked and paid for and my flight booked home from Heathrow.

How can I escape this hell?

My niece texts me late that night. (Luckily I have a SIM that works all over Europe because I’m not allowed to use the wifi as my host believes it will damage the children’s brains.)

Her dad, my brother, has had a stroke and is in hospital. She doesn’t want me to come home, but I see this as my one means of escape. I go straight downstairs to tell my host the news. She doesn’t want to let me go, (I’m an obedient slave) but she understands I have to get home to my brother. I’m on the phone to Qantas immediately and have my flight changed to the next day. Qantas manages to book me a flight to Heathrow from Toulouse and doesn’t charge me. I’m so grateful. My host organises a Bla Bla Car to get me to the airport. I’m disappointed I’m going to miss out on Paris again, but I have to get out of here.

All’s well that ends well.

I arrive home to find my brother still in hospital. He’s been misdiagnosed with a stroke. He actually has epilepsy. He’s put on medication, but will never be able to ride his motorbike again. And do I have a story to tell to my friends who recommended Workaway to me! A little different to their Workaway gigs at a French chateau looking after the herb garden and chopping wood (her husband) and having a three-bedroomed Gatehouse to live in, or their gig on an Italian vineyard preparing wine tastings and cheese platters in the wine cellar.

Here’s Kim Baker’s wild travel story that fortunately ended well for her too.