Tünde in Austria

I am Tünde and I spent half a year in Austria as an ESC-volunteer.

I worked on a farm, which is located in Vorarlberg, in the western corner of the country. Sunnahof is not only a farm, but a place where people with disabilities can work and be valuable members of a great community.

There are four departments where the people can work: gardening, carpentry, agriculture and gastronomy. I was working in the gastronomy. A little shop was also part of it where we sold homemade cookies, jam, muesli, drinks, meat products and products of the carpentry. Our daily tasks were to make salad for lunch from bio vegetables grown in the garden, produce delicacies for the shop and serving guests in the café. Of course the most important thing is to support our clients throughout this process. Sometimes it was challenging to find suitable activities for them, but I enjoyed thinking about it. The use of sign language is important in the approach to supported communication, so I could learn the basics of this as well. I found it very exciting.

Two major events took place on the farm, attracting more visitors than usual. In autumn, the pumpkin festival, and in winter, the Christmas tree market brought a buzz of excitement to the farm. In this time we had a lot of work, but it was fun. Before Christmas we baked a lot, I made dozens of bundt cakes. I also gained insight into the work of the agricultural department. On some weekends and during the Christmas season, I helped with animal care, which I was doing happily.

I was living together with three girls in a big house. The house belonged to the farm, so it took only two minutes to go to work or visit the animals. The other girls were working in the other three departments. We went on lots of trips at the weekends and met up regularly with the other volunteers in Vorarlberg. In my free time I rode my bike whenever the weather permitted and explored the region. Or I just took a walk around the neighborhood.

These months have given me many experiences. Even though I had studied German before, I found the Vorarlberg dialect difficult to understand at first, but then I quickly got the hang of it.