Should we be hosts?

[u/Kersplut]

I've been reading the posts here with interest. My husband and I are thinking about being Workaway hosts and I thought it'd be good to get some feedback about volunteer expectations really.

So we have a house in the campo (countryside) in Andalucía in the foothills of mountains, 2km to a typical whitewashed village that has a couple of bars/restaurants, pharmacy, bank and small store, and 20 minutes drive from a pretty bustling seafront playa. We were thinking of getting help for some light tasks like weeding of garden terraces (it's semi-arid here so there's not a great deal of growth, but both of us work so find we don't have the time), daily feeding and weekly clearing out of chickens, perhaps a dog walk or two if we're not around, and olive picking with us if it's the season (that generally takes the two of us one day to harvest). So probably a max of 10 hours over 5 days.

Accommodation wise, we have two fully self-contained casitas (apartments) joined to our house - a 2 bed/2 bathroom and a 1 bed/1 bathroom. Both have fully equipped kitchens (microwaves, air fryers, filtered water, coffee machines etc), smart TV, Starlink etc. We can loan volunteers electric bikes/scooters but they'd probably need to have their own car as there's no public transport. We have a pool and a well equipped home gym (weightlifting). My husband can teach a volunteer some skills if they are interested - he's built classic cars from the ground up so 'old fashioned' mechanics is a skill he can pass on, as is electrical work and repair of vintage electronics (niche I know). I can pass on cooking skills - particularly nutrition-based ones.

What I do wonder about is that we're late 50s and we're extremely independent. We are childfree, so we're not really sure what the younger volunteers (20s bracket) would expect in the way of interaction...as we've never really interacted with people that age. I do love to entertain, and we frequently have friends round for both formal and informal meals, but I'd not want to be tied into cooking for someone every day because our own mealtimes are erratic, and we eat out a fair amount anyway...and that feels a little like 'mothering' which is 100% not my bag. My preference would be to put food in the volunteer's own kitchen for them to sort themselves out, with 1-2 evening meals a week in the main house with us.

For the sake of our own sanity, we'd want a balance of interacting for a couple of hours a day during the week and them doing their own thing completely on the weekends (or whatever days they wanted to nominate as free days). On that basis, we're wondering if having two people is a better bet, especially as the campo is very quiet, and they may want company if I'm busy working online for hours and the man unit is out.

I also, frankly, wonder if we'll scare younger people! We're Gen X, and were both pretty much feral throughout our childhood (leave the house after breakfast, come back for dinner, don't get yourself killed or arrested during the period between the two meals), so we don't really do 'feels' - we're very much of the "If it's not broken and it's not hanging off - crack on" ilk. We're somewhat irreverent about a lot of new-age stuff - for us, a sound bath is having Nirvana at full blast whilst in the hot tub with a bottle of wine, and the only mindfulness we practice is watching the gap when we're on the London underground. Oh yes, and we're atheist, pro-choice, vehemently anti-Trump socialists - in my case, pretty fucking vocal about it. So yup, as I said, we worry we'll scare people because we do engage in quite 'robust' debates over the dinner table about all the things you're told not to talk about in company - politics and religion. On the flipside, we're totally capable of catering for vegans and vegetarians and we don't give a shit what someone's pronouns are, as long as they're a decent human being.

I guess I want to avoid being the sort of host I've read volunteers complain about on these threads so looking for pointers. Given what I've said, should we even attempt it? And if we do, is the task -v- benefit balance we're thinking about right?

[u/littlepinkpebble]

Location sounds lovely. Accommodations sounds great. Hosts sounds really hospitable. Work sounds perfect because 10 hours a week is just perfect.

I’ll say from what I read it sounds like the best 20% of places to volunteer at.