Job Discussion Forums

[maefrey]

Hi -- I really have no right to be on this board. I am actually asking a question unrelated to English teaching. My question is, does anybody know of any kind of farming project other than the peace corps that would allow me to work in Ecuador? I would love to be josefina shmo and just do some honest labor in exchange for housing.

i know there's a rose plantation near machachi but I'm pretty sure it's ecaudorian owned and I couldn't bring any skills there.
if anybody knows of anything, let me know please! you can PM me or whatever --- thank you.

[Justin Trullinger]

You might find an organic farm, run by some charitable organisation, or some kind of a rural cooperative.

But most Ecuadorian agriculture is either extremely small scale subsistance farming, done by local families and their kids, or extremely large scale commercial farming run by big agribusinesses that like to underpay their employees, and fumigate crops without calling them employees out of the fields first.

In any case, most of us first worlders would have a hard time keeping up with latin american labourers. It helps to think about what you have to offer- and manual labour probably isn't it.

Best,
Justin

[nicomn]

Check out http://www.wwoof.org/ it has information on opportunities for organic farming in countries all over the world. There are 14 listed for Ecuador (I'm looking into doing it later this year) but you have to pay (some fairly small amount of money) to be able get the contact list for each country.

You can read a general description of each place before buying the list though. The link for Ecuador is http://www.wwoof.org/newsite/wlist2.asp?cy=ECUADOR

Good luck, maybe I'll see you down there!!

[MamaOaxaca]

If you are interested in other countries I can give you some contact information for organizations in Mexico that do internships on a work for board type thing, If you are more experienced their may be teaching opportunities with those organizations as well as they do several short courses throughout the year.

[nagilluc]

More about the WWOOF program (world wide opportunities on organic farms) if you're interested...

There are WWOOF organizations in various countries. I traveled in New Zealand and worked on farms for several months and I think it was the best thing I could have done. I got off the beaten path, met wonderful people, had a great time while spending very little, and had a sense of purpose to my days. You basically work for about 4-5 hours 5, maybe 6, days a week in exchange for free room and board (which in many cases happens to be tasty, organic food). Some farms may ask for more time, as did the one I worked on for the longest time. But if you like the work, it's no problem - and if you're up front about an agreement from beginning, I think it generally works out. Most of the farms tend to be on the small side, and some are more like big gardens with orchards or some other focus (at least in NZ).
Some countries have their own organization and you pay a fee for a year long membership that gives you access to the participating farmers and their contact info. There's also a WWOOF 'independents' organization that includes all the farms from all the countries that don't have their own national chapter. That includes most of the Latin American countries that participate and the year membership costs about $35 US. At least that was the fee as of about a year ago.

I am actually planning to head down to Ecuador next October to try to find a teaching job, but I hope to do some WWOOFing there and elsewhere in SA at some point. I can only speak of my experience in NZ, but as well as that went, I would recommend the WWOOF organization to anyone. There may be situations that are less than ideal, but you are always free to move on- and I think you're likely to have a great experience. That said, Justin's point above might be a consideration, and I certainly can't speak of the specific circumstances you'd be likely to find in Ecuador. But I would say try it, you have nothing to lose.