DISCOVERING THE TAIWANESE CULTURE AS VOLUNTEERS We arrived on 4th December at Louise Wu (helpx nb: 32320) and left on 14th although we agreed with Louise to stay until 23rd Dec.
As written in her profile, Louise provided work and we had food and accommodation as it should be provided at a volunteering place. In her profile Louise described: “We welcome those who want to understand TAIWAN culture and appreciate its beautiful scenery”. The first eight days, we experienced that this volunteering was not based on sharing knowledge about the tea and mushrooms plantation or cooking or learning Chinese/Taiwanese. We dealt with it and adapted to our new environment until 10th December at 9pm. We had dinner with her family and friends of them, who are teachers at the primary school, where we already had on day volunteering the day before. They had been drinking (a lot of rice wine: 58% of alcohol) during the dinner. Louise told us that her family (included her) will be away until Sunday evening as they have to go to Taipei. She just said:” either you stay or you go the very next day and come back on Monday morning 7am, when the school begins”. She did not even ask us whether we would like to come. Staying at her place was offered but it was NOT allowed to use her kitchen, it meant no cooking possibilities. She did not help us at all to find a solution but just laughed at us when we asked for the bus schedule or any other alternatives. There might be possibilities to take a bus to go to the towns (Gukeng – 20 km and Douliu 40 km). She did not know the timetables and just mentioned that we had to walk to the bus station. She just said we can go to Douliu with a teacher but never explained how to come back!! When we asked, she avoided replying. In this tiny village, there is only one shop who sells dried mushrooms, instant noodles and biscuits. We could not live on instant noodles 3 days. We had no choice but to organise ourselves in a very short time. Unfortunately, our internet credit was gone and that evening, Louise, after 8 days spent at her family´s place, offered us to use her Wifi. The Wifi was very very slow and the information (for a solution) were only in Mandarin. Meanwhile, the rest spoke only in Chinese, we did not have an idea what was going on. The teacher told us that we can stay at another teacher´s place who has a hotel. He also mentioned we could do some work. Önder asked what kind of jobs, an easy one. It was to learn how to make rice wine. We said that on weekends, we had two days off. At Louise´s place we worked 8 days between 6 to 8 hours per day, we only had one day off since we arrived. We were not consulted at any time and for them that was the solution. We had to accept it, we could not find any other alternatives. As far as we were concerned the situation was serious but they made jokes out of it for example when we asked about toping up our internet. The teacher replied: there is one shop (7/11) one minute away from his house but they all live in the mountain away from any 7/11! Louise did not translate or gave us any details about their solution even we constantly asked for information. She just mentioned we will go with this teacher at 3pm the next day and he will take us to the hotel. On Friday 11th, Louise dropped us off at the school. She told us that we will go with this teacher but we figured out that he was a third one. We decided to go with the flow and keep calm. The teacher took good care of us and we went to his place. On Saturday (12th) we had a good day out and late afternoon he took us to the hotel where we had dinner and a good night sleep. On Sunday 13th we thought we will have a day off at the hotel. After having breakfast, we planned to walk to the nearest town Gukeng (8km one way). Our host did not give us the choice. Before we realised it, we were working!!! We could not really understand what was happening. We decided to carry out the tasks until the end: Önder mowed the grass for two hours and Ingrid helped cleaning the rooms for 2 hours as well. After working we had a discussion with the host about the situation. It was not question to learn making rice wine. His version was that we were coming two days to help them. On Thursday evening, when we spoke with Louise and the teachers we thought it was for fun as they were all time laughing. We did not take our working clothes with us, only few clothes for the weekend. We just left to town and when we came back our host explained us that we could not stay for the night because they had to go to hospital to visit the grandma. They will drop us off somewhere where Louise´s sister coincidently will pass by. We packed and we left one hour after. Back at Louise´s place, in the evening at 8:37pm, we received a SMS from Louise (see below - we did not communicate with her since Friday 3pm). “Hi ! I'm sorry have to tell you one thing. I have to go to Taipei few days . I think thst you can work at teacher's hotel few days . But I think that you don't want. So I'm really sorry that you have to leave tomorrow. Because I will not at home few days. There is a bus tomorrow morning. Take In front of my house . At 7:00 am. you can take it to Douliou trainstation. Is that ok?“ We were shocked and we went to see Louise´s sister. She corrected what Louise wrote as her sister will stay only Monday in Taipei and come back the same day. She tried to call her up, the first time she hung up and the second time we started speaking but shouted back at us and hung up again. We waited for them until 11pm to discuss the matter. We wanted to understand her message as it was not clear to us except that we were kicked out again the very next morning. We were facing a similar situation like Thursday evening but with no coming back!!! To defend herself, Louise said that we did not want to work and stay few days at the teachers´ hotel. The deal on Thursday evening (10th) was different as we were supposed to come back on Monday morning and enjoy the weekend. We replied that it was only lies. We were not informed at all that we had another volunteering place until Wednesday because she was away few days! At that point, she screamed at us and just repeated that anyway no one is here so we have to leave tomorrow morning with the first bus and we could not use her kitchen. At that time she could tell us the information we asked on Thursday evening (bus timetables etc), she was soberer. During our conversation, she drunk the same rice wine as Thursday evening. We could not accept it as it was too short notice. From our side we searched a solution but Louise was only shouting the same thing that we had to leave her place or she will call the police. At that point, Ingrid stood up and in a very firm tone she told her that we will report her and write a bad review and we will leave on Tuesday. Suddenly Ingrid left the place. Louise did not accept it and screamed even louder, she was hysteric and her husband wanted to kick us out on the spot. It was about 11pm, 8 degrees outside! Önder stayed there to calm everyone down. Louise´s sister and Louise´s mother in law came in the room to check what was happening. They began to speak Chinese again without including Önder in the talk. He wanted to be part of the discussion and asked over and over for a translation. Out of the blue, Louise suggested that we could stay until Friday because everyone will be back on Monday evening and not few days later as written and repeated since the beginning of the conversation. For Monday, she planned our activity: teaching English at the primary school without asking us again. Someone will pick up to go to school with the kids. Önder accepted this solution to be able to reorganise the journey. After finding this sudden alternative, Louise was kind of relieved and she admitted that she was exhausted, overwhelmed and strained. She had difficulties to cope with the workload, to manage the kids, her family and the volunteers. We already experienced it the first day on our arrival where we waited for Louise four hours at Douliu train station and after drove around with their family for 6 hours in their car. That night, we decided not to stay any longer as we were not welcomed at all. In the morning, after 3 hours sleep, we took our belongings and went to school at 7:30am. Once at school, teachers (except Louise´s friends and the hotel owner) were worried about us and could not understand the situation until they read Louise´s message. We informed Louise per sms that we left her place and will never come back. While we were searching solutions to continue our trip, one of the teacher offered us the possibility to do volunteering at the school until 23rd December, including lunch and dormitory. It took us two hours to accept it, most of the teachers were happy. Three minutes after we accepted it, Louise sent us a message that it was her idea!!! We found it tricky. Within 5 days, we moved out 5 times and slept in 5 different places. We were very tired from this back and forth. We felt like a rice bag, being transported to one corner to another. At any time no one asked us how we felt and how we were. On the top that, on Sunday we had a food allergy! We remained positive, looked forward and we were pleased to be at the school 10 days. We did not understand why Louise made up stories since Thursday evening and wanted us out although she conceded that she was satisfied with our work. We assumed that there was no more job for us. The tea and the mushrooms harvests were done as well as packaging and selling. During our stay, we helped labelling, packaging mushrooms and tea. We put some fertilisers in the tea plantation and reorganised two mushrooms´ areas. Louise and her family went to customers and Taipei´s market to sell the goods. Based on Louise ´s saying: the next tea harvest will take place in April 2016 and she will build new mushrooms area beginning of January 2016. We really experienced the Taiwanese culture. Within 15 months, it was the really first time that we were kicked out from a volunteering place for no reason. On Wednesday (16th), the teacher who offered us this volunteering position, brought this news: the Chinese government tolerated us until 18th, after we had to leave the school and the dormitory. It was the last straw and left two hours later the school with one of the teacher who went to town Douliu (35km).
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