So now that I’ve given you a little tour of TCDF and explained their mission a bit, how about I fill you in on their volunteer program and what I actually did?
Here’s how the volunteer program works. In exchange for your labor, TCDF will provide you with free dorm accommodation. If you’d like to stay in a guesthouse or bungalow, you’ll pay 50% of the price. Not bad.
If you’d like to eat, which you probably will, meals are offered at 200baht ($6) per day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or 100baht ($3) per individual meal. These meals are shared and consist of healthy Thai dishes. If you participate in the shared meals you are also expected to help wash dishes and clean up.
The food was pretty good but I just couldn’t bring myself to eat Thai food so early in the morning in a hot climate (and I love leftovers for breakfast). After the first day I bought little cups of yogurt from the shops in town for breakfast instead.
So that’s the room and board situation. On to the work.
Volunteers start their day with a morning meeting at 8:30am. At this time the tasks for the day are assigned to different groups of volunteers. The morning usually consisted of watering the various gardens and working in the river garden before it became too hot. The morning work period is from 8:30am to 12:00pm.
After lunch volunteers gear back up for three more hours of work, 1:30pm to 4:30pm. Afternoons are usually spent on less physically demanding tasks, like weeding or making mosaics.
I spent most mornings looking after the chickens, ducks, and fish. This was probably my favorite task. While I was there three baby chicks were born! Once I finished with the animals I joined the rest of the team in the river garden.
In the river garden I dug, transplanted kale, built a bamboo shade structure, built A-frames, and did a lot of watering. Nothing makes you appreciate a sprinkler system like hauling water from a river.
In the afternoons I mainly worked on a mosaic. I was paired up with Val, a volunteer from Seattle. We were quite dedicated to making this little bench as beautiful as possible with minimal resources. We were a bit territorial as well. Unfortunately, we both fell sick towards the end of the second week and weren’t able to finish it. Hopefully, someone took over after we left and it’s a pretty little place to sit by now.
I have to say, working in the hot Thai sun is not easy. Luckily, when you’re helping out such a good cause you don’t mind the sweat so much.
xo, jill