Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2009, Page 38

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 10 — 2009 Car provided by hertz
www.hertz.is
Travel | Activites
… and on his farm he had some lettuce. E-I-E-I-O.
Surviving a weekend WWOOFing in Egilsstaðir
Working the land. Hoeing the weeds
from deceptively long rows of lettuce and
parsley. I’m in Egilsstaðir, in the far east
of Iceland. As far away from Reykjavík
as I can get without leaving this island.
WWOOFing.
This is hard work. Not hard in the
sense of it being physically demanding
– though my right arm is rather sore
from repetitive motions of circling the
hoe under and around every individual
vegetable in the bed for hours at a time
– it’s hard in the sense that I’m not ac-
customed to being so entirely alone with
my thoughts. An experience like this re-
ally drives home the sad reality of my life
of distraction. Distracted by the internet.
Distracted by my iPod. Distracted by con-
stantly being surrounded by people and
noises and images and flash and bang
and ohh and ahh.
It’s easy to act and do when you’ve no
time to think things over. It’s terrifying
to have a bank of three hours, just you
and a bed of lettuce and a hoe, to think
over your life: your actions past, present
and future. Nostalgia is joyfully sadden-
ing. Love is painfully elating. Neither can
you experience at that moment in the
field; just you and a bed of lettuce and a
hoe.
Flipping through the guest book in
the WWOOF quarters of Vallanes or-
ganic farm helps to alleviate my feelings
of being a prisoner of my own mind,
tortured by my incessant inner dialogue.
The book, its original hard black shell re-
covered with a now worn and torn poster
depicting fields and forests, reads like a
surprisingly personal diary; the tradi-
tional upbeat “thanks for a great sum-
mer” entries augmented by deeply indi-
vidual outpourings of personal growth
and struggle experienced by countless
young visitors during their time in the
fields.
One entry from either August 9th or
September 8th of 2001 spoke to me. At
that time a girl named Elizabeth from
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was feel-
ing my pain. Likely younger than me at
the time of writing – as all WWOOFers
seem to be, making me feel frighten-
ingly more senior than my twenty-four
years – and having sought out a summer
of WWOOFing for herself, as opposed
to hearing of the practice by chance and
thinking it a quirky way to spend a couple
of days and potentially interesting fodder
for an article, Elizabeth was struggling
initially.
“There were times that I thought I
might be going insane because I was
having so many thoughts,” she wrote. I
feel you, Elizabeth, whoever you are and
wherever you may be. We are kindred
spirits, you and I. Of course, Elizabeth
learned about herself from the experi-
ence, calling her time at Vallanes “ab-
solutely the healthiest summer” and
expressing her gratitude to farmer Ey-
mundur Magnússon for the opportunity
to explore herself and her thoughts in the
fields.
I haven’t achieved such a heightened
level of calm, inner peace and self-aware-
ness.
Three hours of hoeing in solitude,
something that my fellow WWOOFers
dispersed throughout the field seem to
have no problem with, inspired me not to
explore my deepest inner thoughts, fight
my internal demons and come to terms
with two-dozen years of sometimes ques-
tionable choices. Rather it motivated me
to hit the fields equipped with my iPod.
The subsequent days have been a hell of
a lot easier for it.
It seemed like a good idea at the time
WWOOFing? Is that some canine-specific
breed of bestiality?
That was my inner dialogue upon
a chance encounter in May with Amy
Borkwood, a twenty-five year old Toron-
tonian then recently arrived in Iceland
specifically to hitchhike its ring road and
WWOOF its organic farms. Luckily for
her reputation in my mind, Amy had an
explanation of WWOOFing at the ready.
She’s a hippie, not a fetishist. I like to la-
bel people.
World Wide Opportunities on Organ-
ic Farms (WWOOF) “links people who
want to volunteer on organic farms or
smallholdings with people who are look-
ing for volunteer help.” Thus, WWOOF-
ing is the actual act of volunteering on an
organic farm.
“I first heard about WWOOFing
about 6 years ago, when only one per-
son I knew had WWOOFed, in France,”
Borkwood explains. “Now I know tons of
people that have WWOOFed all over the
world. It has really gained popularity over
the last few years.”
Borkwood, who has WWOOFed pre-
viously in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slove-
nia and Greece, seemingly couldn’t say
enough about the experience. Through
WWOOFing she can travel alone safely,
see parts of countries outside the major
city centres, stay with farmers and be
cared for and fed for free, contribute to
the agricultural growth of another coun-
try and meet people from all over the
world with similar interests to her.
So that’s when the thought hit me:
Getting out of 101 could be nice for a
short period of time. I’m totally going
WWOOFing!
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