Mothers, Babies, Chaos

Fifteen years ago, I created a ground breaking, unique, stellar doula course with my colleague Lesley Everest. We wrote and taught a ten-month long program that fully prepared doulas to do their important work, with confidence, respect and knowledge.

Part of that course required the students to do some volunteer work with mothers and babies. Two of our students spent a summer accompanying 14 marginalized women through their late pregnancies, labour and birth, and immediate postpartum period. I was away for the summer, as I always am, and I got back to their stories of difficulties and birth, and new families… and so a seed was planted.

That was the summer of 2004. Over the next couple of years, our students continued to volunteer to accompany marginalized families through the childbearing year, and we became recognized by nurses, social workers, dieticians, physicians, midwives, and families as an important resource for those who had, in some cases, literally nothing.

In 2006 Montreal Birth Companions was “officially” born: it was registered as a charity and we were able to apply for funding (even though we never actually received any!). For the next ten years, until 2016, I matched needy mothers with willing doulas. Over the course of its history, MBC served almost 1000 families. Some of them needed a doula to attend the birth of their child. Some needed resources that we couldn’t provide, so we referred them elsewhere. Some needed prenatal education, postpartum assistance, or caring for older children.

I know that now there is a movement amongst the doula community that says loud and clear that for the work to be “valued” it should not be given away for free (that is, for no money). My answer to that is twofold: the first echoes Chance the Rapper “I sing for freedom, not for free”. The second asks who exactly would accompany these mothers if we didn’t? These were people who did not have an extra dollar to their name. They had no money, little clothing, sparse food and crowded shelter.

We served refugees, refugee claimants, women with no status, domestic workers who had been illegally sent away from their employees homes, young women, women from every different country, religion, background, color … the only things they had in common were that they were pregnant and they were poor. We served mothers who had fled war and destruction; mothers who had fled rape and forced prostitution; mothers who were hiding from their violent partners. We served families who just needed help navigating the foreign medical system. We served women who didn’t know how to call emergency services (no, birth is not an emergency, but a haemorrhage is … and do you know how to dial emergency services in Benin?).

And now you may ask, why? Why did we bother? Surely these families were fortunate enough to be able to attend a modern hospital with dedicated professionals to assist them? Yes, absolutely. The women we served were very fortunate to be able to birth in a safe environment. But for women in an already precarious situation, it is so important for them to give birth with as few interventions as possible. For two reasons: first, the less interventions a mother has, the easier it is to recover after childbirth. If life is already challenging, why not give the new mother the best start possible? Secondly, many of the families we were serving, especially after about 2010, did not have access to our provincial health care coverage. This meant that they would have to pay per treatment. The very cheapest hospital birth cost a new family from five to seven thousand dollars. This would be a birth where they only spent 24 hours in the hospital, and the attending physician didn’t charge too much. The most any of our clients owed when she left the hospital was $39,000. We tried our very best to prevent a new family from having to pay for unnecessary treatments. Once we explained to the medical staff what the situation was, we were usually met with understanding and patience.

In 2016, I experienced the consequences of creating an organization with no structure. My joke was always that MBC (Montreal Birth Companions) stood for Mothers, Babies and Chaos. Basically, my mandate was to provide free doula services for mothers in need. That’s what we did, successfully, for many years. But Star Hawk, in one of her books, describes the frailty and danger of an organization that does not have a clear structure: what can happen is that the members of the organization can start to feel threatened, if not by the leader, then by the lack of structure itself.

Two of my doulas were attending the birth of a refugee woman. Only one doula was allowed in the room at one time (the hospital had a rule that only two support people were allowed, and the preacher from the woman’s church decided to attend the birth). The doulas had not previously met the woman; this was an urgent request from the midwives who were following her, and they had not told me that this person would be there.

Over the course of the labour, the preacher harassed the two doulas with sexually intimidating comments, and finally in the morning he physically assaulted one of them. When the doulas told me, I told the midwives and the clinic, and I was met with a strangely layered response: the man had also harassed a nurse at the clinic, and we should be tolerant because he is from another culture where it is common to act like that. 

This bizarre attitude threw me completely, and left me and “my” doulas with no resources except one person outside the organization who tried to facilitate. I felt guilty; the doulas felt angry and shamed, and none of us knew what to do. Why? Simply, because I had not built an organization that contained within it the structures to be able to deal with unforeseen events. Even if you’re an anarchist, even if you don’t believe in Boards, Presidents, and Secretaries, you have to create some kind of structure that can deal with attack.

So what did I do? I stepped down as director and a collective took over the work and the organization. I was so shaken by what had happened I had to leave the work to others. I withdrew, ran my café, and did a lot of running. In December 2016 I was sitting on the bus and I read a tweet by a Syrian journalist about what was happening in Aleppo. I learned that many families had made the dangerous crossing from Turkey to Greece, where they were being housed in camps.

By January 2017 I had packed my bags and headed to Greece to provide midwifery care to the young families in the camps and elsewhere in Greece. It was one of the coldest winters on record. People were housed in UN tents inside abandoned factories. Some of the more vulnerable were moved to apartments and hotels that were vacant and made available. I met with one family from Syria who were being housed in a small room with water literally dripping down the walls, intermittent electricity, and a shared bathroom. She was almost at term, and her baby was breech, and when I suggested some exercise she said it was too painful because of some bomb shrapnel she still had in her hip.

While the larger NGOs argued over bureaucratic details, such as which organization could visit which hotel, I quietly gathered needed resources (clothes, diapers, soap…) from the over-filled basement of the NGO I was working with, and drove to visit pregnant women all over the north of Greece who were in need. I worked with some amazing, brave people and I will never forget that experience.

But then I got back to Montreal and I was met with a deep weariness. I felt that the tiny drop in the huge ocean of need was never going to be enough. I stopped practising as a doula, knowing that there were younger, better, more enthusiastic doulas out there (many of them trained by myself or my colleague). My extensive knowledge of undisturbed, woman-centered childbirth made it difficult for me to witness many of the hospital births I was called to, and my discomfort spread to others around me. I no longer attended home births, as the definition of “practising midwifery without a license” was at the same time clarified and obfuscated by two different legal battles in Canada.

So, where am I? Well, of course, life goes on, so I have a large family to attend to, a successful café to run with middle son, all sorts of projects in the air … and yet … I was made to serve, and I’m looking for another project, so if anyone needs a CPM without papers (let them expire), doula teacher, or a Jill-of-all-trades to work for freedom, I’m in!

Blessings

When I think about blessings, I think about what I've done for so much of my life. I've spent many years of my time on the planet providing birth services (love, care and knowledge) for free. So when I think about it I get sad (because I haven't done enough), and then I get mad (because for a lot of people, it's all about the dollar), then I get happy. Because when we do our work out of love for the other, we are literally changing the world. Love can change the world! Giving love, sacrificing your stuff for another, rains down blessings.

I'd love to change the world...but I don't know what to do.

There's a movement growing: the movement of regulation, of expertise, professionals. If y'all don't conform and waste your time doing paperwork and following the man's rules, then you will get smashed. Smash the patriarchy? Good luck! The patriarchy is busy smashing you, by telling you what to think and believe.

So here's a message to the young doulas and would-be midwives out there: don't get sucked in by the bullshit message that you are a professional. You're not. You are a companion, with hands, heart and kindness, and maybe a smattering of knowledge. You are there to provide comfort, love, warmth, you're there to provide a safe space. Yes, people with money should pay you. But if we let simple companionship become a luxury that's only available for the rich, then we are, quite simply, fucked.

The End of Midwifery

A Heavy Heart

My heart is heavy. Guess what guys? The Man won! It's the end of midwifery! Ok, probably not really. There's always movement and change. I guess the brave families who decide to birth at home on their own will engender the new wave of fearless midwives. I hate it when polemics are forced upon you though.

Ok, I will stop speaking in tongues and get to the point.

I can't believe it's been two years since the crackdown. Actually ... yes, two years. In October, 2016, in two Canadian provinces, three women were charged with "practising midwifery without a licence". Also, just under two years that independent midwives in the UK (fully trained and registered as midwives but choosing not to work through the National Health Service) were forced out of work with a legislation that passed in January, 2017 that meant that they needed to find private indemnity insurance in order to take on clients. And in Hungary, professional midwife Agnes Gereb was sentenced to two years in prison for practising midwifery.

Satanic Brain Surgeons?

What does all this mean? Is it similar to a satanic team of brain surgeons who trained at woodworking school and decided to give everyone down-home lobotomies?

Nope. It's a question of what happens with regulations and legislations. It engenders all sorts of divisive tactics and means that the powers that be, i.e. the legislators, have to keep things steady by creating divisions between people.

It was the midwives' associations that took unregistered midwives to court. That same organization was born during the slow process to legalization of midwifery, back when all Canadian midwives were working "illegally": the work itself was deemed illegal. So how could those women have retained their memories of their own actions and still thought it appropriate to condemn others doing the same?

How did The Man win?

Well, it was actually we who lost. We've created an illusory community based on love, trust, love and peace and all that stuff. We talk about safety, honor, respect, inclusivity, but in the end it all disappears in a puff of smoke when push comes to shove. Which it does.

I've travelled the world; created vibrant and useful volunteer organizations (Montreal Birth Companions and WWOOFItalia), and left them; I've been an organic farmer, a midwife, a doula, a teacher. I left that work and now I own and run a small cafe. I'm hiding from the world, I've created a space where at any given time I have a couple of breastfeeding mums sitting n the couch chatting; a lineup of working people getting their lunch; a few retired couples or groups of friends; the constant stream of coffee drinkers working on their laptops. I serve wholesome home made food. I've withdrawn from the birth world, and from the volunteer world, with all of the broken trust and betrayals that both those worlds offer.

What do you mean, betrayals?

I witnessed two NGOs fighting over turf: refugees caught in the middle. Warehouses full of clothing, diapers, and other donated items laying abandoned as not-for-profit enterprises argued over who was to deliver which items where. What levels of insanity are at work here? I was sneaking baby clothes and diapers from the basement of an NGO to take them to a woman in need who wasn't registered with them.

Two volunteer doulas were sexually intimidated, one of them physically, while they were attending the birth of an asylum seeker. Her bible-toting "friend" assaulted one in an elevator and made crude remarks throughout the labor. The response of the aid organization to the complaint? "It's their culture: it's our job to tolerate and teach." What levels of insanity are at work here? Racism: the Nigerian men are all rapists? Sexism: the women's job is to submit and teach by example? Classism: y'all are just volunteers; we are salaried midwives/bureaucrats and our word counts.

I witnessed a 60 year old midwife who was a fully trained professional break down in tears when she read that her government would no longer allow her to practice midwifery. What levels of insanity? Insurance schemes, corporate health care, pitting woman against woman. The end of midwifery.

And on a teensy but frightening personal level, I witnessed a disgruntled doula wreak havoc online by accusing his elders and publicly shaming them.

Culture in Full Decline

We in the affluent world are witnessing a culture in full decline. There are many signs; just look around you. We live in a culture based on fear and suspicion, when there is really very little to fear. The culture abounds with cheap goods made in sweat shops staffed with children who should be in school. The biggest problem of our age is the refugee crisis; xenophobic leaders are being voted in all over the western world because the left has made a caricature of itself. We can buy pot in little plastic child-proof containers; midwifery is tightly regulated; everyone is afraid of each other with no reason; language has been turned inside out. The end of midwifery.

This is where beauty lies.

Real midwives take risks. Real midwives love each other. Real midwives support women. Real midwives can take no for an answer. Real midwives are tolerant. Real midwives know when their skills are not enough. Real midwives are afraid sometimes, but they don't allow their fear to guide them.

For some real midwifery, have a look here, or here. Write to me if you want to know more.

Sending out love on this gibbous moon waning.

Brutal Births for Asylum Seekers

Yes, as if it wasn't bad enough leaving Mosul, Aleppo, Damascus or any other not so well-known  place where war killed thousands and maimed more (have a peek here to get a sense of the immensity of the crisis), yes if that wasn't bad enough, if it wasn't bad enough to flee - to have to flee, leaving a normal life - the kind of life you and I lead - with phones and laptops and going out to eat and new clothes and a job and a house and cool stuff and a country you love or you love to complain about -if it wasn't bad enough to run through a country you didn't recognize, and maybe get caught by the police, or maybe your brother gets caught and he throws you his child - and you keep running - and then if it wasn't bad enough to have to live in a tent, when you're pregnant and having to pee all the time, and your sister is in Turkey and you are worried about her, and its your first baby and you don't know anything about having a baby because you were studying finance in University before all this shit started - and if it wasn't bad enough to get a call at midnight from the UNHCR telling you to pack your stuff because you're being relocated tomorrow, so any friends you had you can only communicate by Whats App because no one can get around much - and if it wasn't bad enough that you packed all your stuff in one nylon bag, and your belly is hurting and you don't know why, and you are moved to a hotel past the airport, and there is an abusive helper man there but you can't tell anyone, and if it wasn't bad enough to be living in a hotel, with no chance to cook so you want to be back living in a tent in a warehouse ....

Then you may be in labor but you don't really know - and who has ever been pregnant for the first time knows how this feels - and of course we get calls all the time when people think they're in labor and they just need some love and reassurance and they usually go back to sleep, unless they really are in labor in which case we go to be with them.

But in any case, there's no one to call, and you're frightened for the baby, so you call an ambulance. And indeed you're not in labor, but its kind of around your due date, and your baby's big according to the ultrasound, so you have a c-section. Alone, because husbands aren't allowed in, and because you don't have a doula, and because just because. Your life just gets more and more painful, and the blood is awful, and the people speaking Greek to you, loudly so you understand, but you don’t understand anything – not why you had to leave, why you are running, why you can’t just go to Switzerland where your brother is, why you are having your baby cut out of you instead of how normal people have their babies … it is awful, and you think about your friend a few years ago, she had a baby. She had it in the hospital, back home in Syria, she said it was painful but nothing you couldn’t do with just a little encouragement. Her older sister went with her, and she had a nice doctor.

Cesarean section rates are ridiculously high in Greece, much higher than the recommended 15% that the WHO suggests is a rate that both protects mothers and babies, and higher than the rate was in Syria before the war (see Syrian c-section rates here). Our average in Canada is around 25%. That’s one in four babies born – but those figures vary widely across the country and across socio-economic lines. More wealthy and educated people in Canada are now working hard to have a vaginal birth, and of course the possibility of midwifery care greatly increases your chance of having your baby vaginally. My private doula clients have generally had rates of c-section varying from 6 to 15 %. The volunteer doula program I led for many years served marginalized families in Montreal, and our c-section rates were high – up to 35%. I am extrapolating from my figures and from what I heard from the mothers I met, and I suggest that from a Greek 60% it may go up to closer to 90% for asylum seekers, in a rural hospital next to a refugee camp.

If you are an asylum seeker in Greece, you are at the mercy of spotty health care, and that care is embedded in a system that doesn’t work! The medical NGOs are doing their best - Medecins du Monde, Medecins Sans Frontiers, SAM, Rowing Together ... but prenatal care is patchy. And there isn't the kind of continuity that always makes a difference. Frequent ultrasounds are the norm, instead of quality week-by-week prenatal care. Logistically, it’s easier to plan an induction or a c-section than to have a laboring woman transferred by … by what? Taxi? Ambulance? Someone’s private car?  … at 3 in the morning if she goes into labor and has been relocated to the back of beyond? So she gets the call from her doctor, or a doctor who comes to the hotel or the camp, and off she goes.

The word is, that doulas aren’t allowed in the hospitals, but I don’t believe it. I believe a friendly, smiling face accompanying a laboring mother will be welcomed by the hospital, especially if that mother starts screaming the doula’s name when she is separated (sorry, yes, I have done this). I want to change things around for these mothers, and provide them with caring companions who will be with them through thick and thin. Even if they don’t get to go into the labor room, even if a mother does end up having a surgical birth, a smiling face at the end of that tunnel is a life-changer.

I’m not big on bureaucracy, protocols, rules. I believe kindness, unconditional love, and a little who-gives-a-shit attitude can go a long way. I am determined to change some peoples’ lives for the better, starting with their birth day.

Who’s with me? Please let me know if you would like to be part of my dream: leave me a comment and I will reply as soon as I can, or join my group on Facebook: Birth Companions International.

Thanks to Zed

My gratitude alphabet is coming to an end. It started last year when I wrenched my back carrying too many packages over the slippery icy sidewalk, and I was angry at the world. A friend suggested I start a gratitude process to help my back. The back was sorted within a week but my alphabet continued.

Today I am grateful for endings. I'm happy that life is full of changes, and that I have had a pretty amazing ride so far. But I know I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't given up on some big projects that I've loved in the past.

But, as always, endings are always embedded in beginnings and vice versa. And I am very, very grateful that some things in my life have remained constant and steady.

If I hadn't moved forward and stepped down from leading MBC, I wouldn't have had the time to do some of the interesting projects I've been able to participate in since the summer: being more involved in my cafe, running more (I say this in a guilty voice because I haven't run much here in Greece), coming to Greece to lend a hand with the asylum seekers here, and stuff like that...

So now what?

Just joking with my co-volunteers about the ending of my gratefulness alphabet - now I can be an absolute asshole for the rest of my life! No, endings aren't like that, actually. Stuff just seems to go on forever, really. I mean, there are always ripples from past experiences and actions. And even when the real ending happens, when someone dies, of course we have memories of that person.

So my time in Greece is almost over for now and I am filled with different emotions: sadness, gratefulness, love, disgust, regret, joy, anger... and my alphabet continues.

Day One, two, three

Everything here in northern Greece has been slowed down incredibly because of the snow. Of course, being from Montreal, I can laugh at the 6-8 inches we have here, but the fact is that many of the roads were closed on Tuesday, and my car has been sitting at the bottom of the hill so that we could be sure of having transportation, even if we have to trudge through the snow and ice to get there.

Monday I arrived:

Tuesday I got settled. Bought some groceries for myself, and a hot water bottle! I froze in my bed on Monday night and thought about the people living in tents or on the street. I had to park my car at the bottom of the hill and walk up with the groceries ... then later I walked back down with another Canadian volunteer to get chains for my tires. No snow tires here! 

Wednesday we went to visit a family with a newborn. Lovely family, we spoke at length with the neighbours, listening to their heart-wrenching stories. 

There was a field, dogs running, birds swooping down onto the snow, kids running and playing.

A child rolled around on the floor playing a noisy game on the phone. Her parents kept reminding her to turn down the volume. Sound familiar? 

A man was building a snow sculpture on the wall of the building. Maybe he taught art at the university before he was pushed into this life, or maybe he was a graphic designer in an advertising company.

You have to realize that the people - "refugees" or whatever labels you use - they are people like you: they have lives, families, kids, phones, tablets, worries, ... did YOU ever imagine you would be living in a tent? Neither did they.

Today we will be distributing food and necessities to other families, and visiting prenatal and postpartum mothers. It's a beautiful day.

"What can I do?" We are all asking ourselves. You can volunteer:  check out this link if you have free time and energy: http://www.greecevol.info/index.php

You can donate money: have a look, see what you want to support. There are organizations that work with every different sector of the population: children, mothers and babies, housing, employment...health ... 

You can get political. The borders are closed. People are stuck in the southern European countries with no work and no status. Their families have been torn apart. The political realities seem unchangeable and too complicated for normal people like us to change. Perhaps this is true. Then do your part to change the small things. Support the refugees in your country and make them feel at home. 

We are not made of snow and ice. Together, we can change the world.

Vote for Montreal Birth Companions!

As you all know by now, if you are regular readers of my blog (speaking of which, please follow me!), Montreal Birth Companions is a volunteer-led organization that provides free doula services and resources to marginalized women in and around Montreal.

The women we serve are at risk because of youth, poverty, isolation, or refugee/immigration status, or because of all of these factors. MBC doulas work to provide non-judgmental and unconditional support to all of our pregnant women and new parents.

Montreal Birth Companions have been providing support for birthing families since 2003, with no funding. Our volunteers work from the heart; our coordinators and administrators spend unpaid hours devoted to this worthy cause. Please help us help women by voting for Birth Companions on the AVIVA FUND. You can vote every day, from individual email addresses!

HOW TO VOTE:

1) Create an account on the Aviva Community

Fund website: https://www.avivacommunityfund.org/users/registration/register

2) Go to your email inbox and click on the link that Aviva sent you.

3) Go to the Montreal Birth Companions Aviva idea:

http://www.avivacommunityfund.org/ideas/acf16929 and VOTE for Montreal Birth Companions!

4) Do this every day starting September 30th. Help us win funds to provide prenatal classes for the women we serve.

Ethical Birth Work

I was an intern at a maternity clinic a quite few years ago and I had some interesting experiences there. One young woman came to get some experience as a midwife, so that she could decide if she wanted to make the jump from being a doula, or if she was going to move to physiotherapy instead. On her first afternoon, the clinic was very busy, and she was led to a room where found she was the only midwife (not even!). She became depressed over the six weeks I knew her, and she left miserable and feeling violated.

I was very interested in what was happening. I have had a dream all my life of returning to Uganda where I spent my first three years, and working alongside the TBAs there to provide maternity care. I am fascinated by how organizations work, and I love to see how particularly women's organizations unfold, and how we keep (or not) bullying and aggression out of the ring.
I have travelled to many places. I have so many memories of different places and different people. I remember being led up a rocky path in the mountains of Morocco when I was seventeen, by two young women. We found a stream and drank, and spoke with our eyes and hands. We laughed. I gave them my earrings.

In Africa, a few years later, a young woman ran to me carrying her baby. I knew he was dying. She thought I may be able to help because of the color of my skin. I couldn't.

I travelled on my own, avoiding danger or fleeing when necessary. I used my polite manner and my eyes and hands to communicate friendliness, and I was never hurt too badly.

Years and many experiences and chapters later, I decided to finally get my certification as a professional midwife. My visit to the maternity clinic was one step along the road. One night, at around three in the morning, I was in a birthing room at the clinic. I was not supposed to be "primary", but the woman who was on for that night was exhausted from a hard birth, so the head midwife told me to assist. The birth was difficult, and the head midwife told me to enter the woman and manipulate the baby's head so that he could be born. I had my hands in the woman, when the boss midwife entered the room, tapped me on the shoulder, indicated that I should leave, and she had another intern take my place.

She was having a power struggle with the head midwife. Her ego was too big to fit through her pelvis, that's for sure!

But what about the woman giving birth? How did she feel when my hands left her, there was a tense emotional moment, and a new person's hands went in? Did she feel violated?

I have no interest in manipulating baby's heads, actually, I believe they get born better if they're left alone. But I also believe that the epicentre of the birthing room HAS to be the mother who is birthing her baby. A birthing room is no place for politics to unfold. Aggression and rudeness do not belong there. Love belongs. Peace belongs. Honor and respect belong.

There is a wider discussion going on right now in the midwifery world, about how this plays out in the bigger world picture of midwifery today. Student midwives from North America are traveling to poorer countries to earn their qualifying numbers so that they can become certified as professional midwives. Is this right or wrong? How can we accept a student midwife's desire to do good, and screen out the "number whores" (these are the students who travel to other countries simply to get their qualifying numbers, giving little thought to the women they are working with or for).

There are many small clinics all over the world where courageous, passionate, dedicated and professional midwives work every hour of every day to improve maternity care for the women they serve. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water! For many of these clinics, paying volunteers from rich countries are one of the few ways they manage to stay solvent. But we do not need students to travel to other places so that they can experience a woman dying...birth is not reality television.

I believe the answer is within. If you go into every birthing room with love in your heart, respecting the other people in that room and honoring the birthing mother, then you will find yourself unable to use a birthing mother as a number, a statistic, or an educational tool. Women who give birth are worthy of the greatest respect. Let our politics play out elsewhere, away from the new baby, away from the birthing mother, away from the birth room.

WWOOF Italia

I got a call from Ninni the other day. She was the first Italian Wwoofer we had years ago on our farm. Her and her boyfriend drove up from Sicily, held hands while they picked stones from the wheat, which I then ground and made our bread and pasta, and were generally a lot of fun to have around. Even though I could hardly understand a word of what Ninni said when she got excited and slipped into full Sicilian.
Talking to Ninni got me reminiscing about WWOOF Italia, and thinking about volunteers and the difference they can make to people’s lives.
We bought a crumbling stone farmhouse and seven acres of land, part vineyard, part wooded, with a pond and a spring, when I was expecting my fourth child. What a time those boys had! When we were in the fields or up on top of the roof, they were fighting battles, rafting in the goose-ridden pond, and making wooden schooners next to the chicken coop.
We had many helpers over the years. Our youngest was a seventeen year-old from England who came, took one look, and asked to be taken back to the station. Our oldest was a lovely woman who had done with family and children, and wanted to explore the world. They helped weeding the garden, picking grapes, building stone walls, cutting hay, … in return for a place to stay and three good meals a day.
Wwoof has changed over the years. In 1991 there were two or three hosts, now there are hundreds. The typical host was like us: lots of children, a small mixed farm, no money, and lots of energy and determination. There are still many hosts like we were, but there are also large “agriturismos”, which use volunteers to change beds and set tables.
And the volunteers have changed too. Back in the day, they were mostly travelers, or people in search of a different lifestyle, or curious about farming, or wanting to get away from their city-based life. Now, especially in the summer, we are inundated with young tourists, who are looking for a cheap place to stay, and consider a little farm work to be a good way to get some exercise. Winter is generally better, when tourism is down.
Still, it is a good way to get experience, and a wonderful way to meet people, and learn or practice languages. The hosts still benefit from a helping hand, and tolerance and generosity are generally the order of the day.