The Heart Knows the Way

Before I head into the nitty gritty of planning my volunteer journey I thought I’d share again why I’m doing this and what happened to my illustration work.

I’m getting lots of questions from friends and family and it seems some people are confused about what I’m doing right now and why I’m not simply making my illustrations to earn a living while I’m traveling. I do understand the confusion, after all I worked hard to get to the point where I was making a decent living with my illustration work and I have several great clients. My biggest client in particular is really amazing and would still love to work with me. So why don’t I just keep on doing that?

The fact is that I haven’t been making any illustrations in a while. When the pandemic hit it was as if all my inspiration and creativity was sucked away completely. I lost my focus and my motivation and for quite some time I pushed myself hard to get back on track. But any creative work I managed to get done just wasn’t good, it lacked the spark and joy that my work always vibrated with before. And even my clients noticed it and remarked upon it.

So eventually I came to the conclusion it’s better to give myself the time and opportunity to simply follow what makes my heart sing, to explore and discover what could be next instead of keeping on pushing myself to do things where my heart isn’t in it.

And right now what sparks my interest and makes my heart sing is being in nature, learning about regenerative living, growing my own food, … I really want to step away from my computer and ipad (the tools I use for my illustrations) and go outside more.

It’s an adventure, a journey and I’m not sure where I’ll eventually end up. It comes with lots of uncertainties and fears, especially financial fears. I know that I could end up running out of money at some point. But nevertheless I think it is worth it, it’s worth exploring new avenues and seeing where these interests lead me. And hopefully it will all work out fine.

And who knows, they might even lead me back to illustration work… But it’s also possible that it leads me elsewhere. I might end up working fulltime on an organic farm, become a natural building expert, become a vegan chef or something that I don’t even know right now! The future will tell!

That’s why volunteering will be so great as it will allow me to learn and experience lots of new things, meet inspiring people to exchange ideas while also giving me the time to think about everything without having this financial sword of Damocles hanging above my head.

I get that some people might not understand this or think this is crazy. They may assume it is easy to just whip up a few illustrations to sell to your regular clients. But it’s really hard when you’re doing a creative job to keep on pushing your creativity when you just don’t feel it.
And some people may prefer to choose the financial safety and keep on doing on a job even if their heart isn’t in it, but that just doesn’t work for me. If anything I see this as an opportunity to redirect and realign myself and grow! It comes with some growing pains but ultimately I’m sure it will all be worth it!

The Slow Process of Finding Volunteer Places

It has surprised me a little bit but it has not been as easy as I expected to find and actually confirm places to volunteer with!

I honestly thought it would be much easier! There are so many places, so many organic farms, permaculture gardens, food forests, retreat centers, … that accept volunteers here in Portugal but it’s been a rather frustrating and slow experience to organise my stays.

The past weeks I’ve been spending hours and hours googling for organic farms, checking out websites, checking out profiles on websites like Wwoof and Workaway, writing personal messages to explain when I would like to come, why and what I’m about and so many simply don’t reply at all or are very slow to reply. It has made me wonder whether this lack of respons is something typical for Portugal or for this type of volunteer work in general everywhere.

Some Good News at Last!

I first emailed several places directly without much success. Then I became a member of Wwoof Portugal, and there as well it seems a lot of places simply don’t bother to reply to your messages.

But the good news is that I’ve finally found a first place to volunteer! A lovely organic farm in the small fishing village of Santa Luzia near Tavira where I can volunteer for one month from mid May til mid June and I’m super happy about that! It is located close to the beach and Tavira is also within cycling distance, so that will be great to go exploring in my free time…

And this past weekend I managed to organise one more stay. This time to volunteer at a wonderful permaculture garden that belongs to a beautiful boutique hotel in Santa Cruz. It’s located about an hour north of Lisbon right on the West coast. I will be able to stay there for 6 weeks from mid August (before that their volunteer slots were already filled up). I have a really good feeling about this place, they were quick to reply to my messages and they seemed nice!

The Search Goes On…

Last weekend I also became a member of Workaway hoping I would have better luck there and spent hours going through the host profiles. Workaway has even more hosts than Wwoof and the advantage is that many hosts there supposedly also accept volunteers for shorter periods so hopefully I can find a place through Workaway for the first 2 weeks of May. I’ve reached out to a few places but am still waiting for them to reply. So it seems swift responses are not happening on Workaway either. Fingers crossed I’ll get a reply soon though!
And if I can’t find a host for those 2 weeks I’ll just travel a bit in the Algarve until I can start at the organic farm in Santa Luzia. I wouldn’t mind exploring a few more towns in the Algarve before I start there.

But I’m also still looking for hosts for those 2 months from mid June til mid August. And I’m not sure if I should just try to find one host to volunteer for those 2 months, or more hosts for shorter time. I like the idea of spending shorter time at a few more places to have more different experiences but it truly is a struggle to organise so many different stays when so few places actually respond to your messages. It might just be easier to try to stay at one place for longer and that might also have the advantage that you’ll be able to connect more deeply with the people there.

So that’s where I am right now, feeling both happy about the two places I managed to organise and slightly frustrated that it takes so much energy and so many hosts don’t even bother to reply. But I’m staying positive and I’m sure that I’ll find my way to the right places! Anything is possible!

Anyway, now you’re all up-to-date! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can find those few extra hosts soon!

In the mean time I’ll keep on searching and I have some more friends from Antwerp visiting me over next couple of weeks too!

If you have any tips on the best way to find places to volunteer or had the same or different experience in other countries, please let me know. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way or maybe I need to widen my search field to other countries if it easier there!