Our journey – Part 3: Esmee’s WWOOFing experience in Canterate.
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In the previous blog we shared about our first visit to the area of Montségur. In this blog, Esmee will share how this week led her to return to the area for a longer period of time.
When I returned from that week in February (2022), the ideas we had had for long started to feel real. At that time I was still doing a master in Sustainability Transitions, but this week had had such a transforming effect, that I decided to stop with masters (for multiple reasons), end my renting contract in Rotterdam and move back in with my mom. I wanted to create the space to discover how my life would look if I would take this path seriously and have the flexibility to uncover this. What was clear, I strongly felt that I needed to go back to the Ariège to feel by myself if I also liked the reality of a simple type of lifestyle in the rural mountains.
My path led me to sign up to go WWOOFing for 4 weeks in Canterate, about an hour from Montségur, at a farm run by a lady in her 60s. She produces most of her food herself and mainly sells ‘confiture’ (jam), syrups and tomato sauce as a living. The concept of WWOOFing is that you get fully emerged in the lifestyle of the person that is hosting you. As I had told her, that my aim was to live in the region, she decided to take me along wherever she could.
I worked on the land every morning and spent my afternoons learning a whole lot of things or joining her if she went on a trip. I learned about the plants she grew, about ecological building, as her house was built with straw and clay, and about the area.
As an artisan herself, she knew all about the local artisan network in the area. There are still many people in the Ariège that make handmade local products and use traditional ways to do so. She took me to a small artisanal farmer’s market where she sold her jams or would exchange them for bread and eggs with other artisans. The simplicity felt joyful. There I learned about the fact that there is a local currency, ‘La Pyrène’, in the Ariège used by artisans, to keep the money circulating in the local economy.
I got some more local culture immersion when I joined a folk dance event in a house in a tiny village. A band played Occitan music, which is the language that was traditionally spoken in the area, and everyone danced the traditional dances to the song. I was lucky enough that people were very open to teach me and I had blast.
Through her social network I met many interesting people as well. People working on food forest, building their own Tiny houses, dying fabrics with natural dye. I found such a richness of knowledge in the area and in the place that I was WWOOFing. I already knew I would come back here with Sarah and Florence! And we did many times. It is from friends I made during this time in this village that we got the chickens we have right now; they gave us Othello and Mirabel as young ones and Brunhilde and Olimpe as fertilized eggs (see: Meet Our Team (Animals)).
After our first holiday I was excited about living in the area, these weeks in Canterate made me feel like I was already at home.
In the next blog post we will share how the three of us returned to Montségur, but this time not for a day, but for a whole four months!
Our journey – Part 3: Esmee’s WWOOFing experience in Canterate.
Uploaded:
In the previous blog we shared about our first visit to the area of Montségur. In this blog, Esmee will share how this week led her to return to the area for a longer period of time.
When I returned from that week in February (2022), the ideas we had had for long started to feel real. At that time I was still doing a master in Sustainability Transitions, but this week had had such a transforming effect, that I decided to stop with masters (for multiple reasons), end my renting contract in Rotterdam and move back in with my mom. I wanted to create the space to discover how my life would look if I would take this path seriously and have the flexibility to uncover this. What was clear, I strongly felt that I needed to go back to the Ariège to feel by myself if I also liked the reality of a simple type of lifestyle in the rural mountains.
My path led me to sign up to go WWOOFing for 4 weeks in Canterate, about an hour from Montségur, at a farm run by a lady in her 60s. She produces most of her food herself and mainly sells ‘confiture’ (jam), syrups and tomato sauce as a living. The concept of WWOOFing is that you get fully emerged in the lifestyle of the person that is hosting you. As I had told her, that my aim was to live in the region, she decided to take me along wherever she could.
I worked on the land every morning and spent my afternoons learning a whole lot of things or joining her if she went on a trip. I learned about the plants she grew, about ecological building, as her house was built with straw and clay, and about the area.
As an artisan herself, she knew all about the local artisan network in the area. There are still many people in the Ariège that make handmade local products and use traditional ways to do so. She took me to a small artisanal farmer’s market where she sold her jams or would exchange them for bread and eggs with other artisans. The simplicity felt joyful. There I learned about the fact that there is a local currency, ‘La Pyrène’, in the Ariège used by artisans, to keep the money circulating in the local economy.
I got some more local culture immersion when I joined a folk dance event in a house in a tiny village. A band played Occitan music, which is the language that was traditionally spoken in the area, and everyone danced the traditional dances to the song. I was lucky enough that people were very open to teach me and I had blast.
Through her social network I met many interesting people as well. People working on food forest, building their own Tiny houses, dying fabrics with natural dye. I found such a richness of knowledge in the area and in the place that I was WWOOFing. I already knew I would come back here with Sarah and Florence! And we did many times. It is from friends I made during this time in this village that we got the chickens we have right now; they gave us Othello and Mirabel as young ones and Brunhilde and Olimpe as fertilized eggs (see: Meet Our Team (Animals)).
After our first holiday I was excited about living in the area, these weeks in Canterate made me feel like I was already at home.
In the next blog post we will share how the three of us returned to Montségur, but this time not for a day, but for a whole four months!
