Tourist Times Together

Tourist Times Together

Volunteers Tour the Market and Aubeterre

To welcome our new volunteers, we had an exciting and busy Monday! Firstly we attended the local Chalais market. From meats to make up, there was something for everyone. Most of our volunteers took advantage of the multiple fruit stalls available and brought home peaches and strawberries for our lunch. We also purchased local cheeses, souveniers and of course the local wine, Pineau.

After devouring our purchases for lunch, we headed to Aubeterre Sur Dronne. Listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France, it is located in South Charente, around 25 minutes from La Giraudière. The group collectively visited The Church of Saint Jean and the useful guides allowed us to understand the history and structure of the old building. It is the largest subterranean church in Europe and it was only rediscoevered in the 1950’s due to a rock fall concealing the church for centuries. After the tour, the group took to the streets and explored the alley ways and found all sorts of shops and cafes to relax in.

Inside The Church of St Jean, lookiung up at the old, stone pillars

Inside The Church of St Jean, looking up at the old, stone pillars

Look at this view!!

Look at this view!!

In the evening, we were lucky enough to be cooked dinner by our 4 Chinese volunteers at La Giraudière. They made soup, curry, rice and sweet milk tea which was enjoyed by everyone on site! It was a perfect way to welcome our latest volunteers and now we are all back to work again!!

Our yummy dinner!

Our yummy dinner!

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Additions to the Volunteering Family

Additions to the Volunteering family

Welcome to the Team

The La Giraudière family has welcomed 3 new volunteers! Firstly, we welcomed Shao Ping all the way from Australia. She will be staying with us until the end of the project in October. She is loving it here, despite the jet lag! She will be working in our office,responding to emails and making sure that all the volunteers hoping to stay at La Giraudière are taken care of. She hopes to improve her French as well as spending lots of time shopping at the local markets!

Next, we welcomed Monseuir Antoine from France. At 17 years old, he is the youngest volunteer curently staying here. During his stay, he will be doing our gardening as well as some manual labour on our old house. Alongside his physical work, he is hoping to take advantage of some of our English speaking volunteers and try to speak as much English as possible. He is with us for 2 weeks before returning to school.

Finally, we welcomed Eilidh (pronounced like Hayley without the H) from Scotland. She is spending 3 weeks here to improve her French before returning to her univiersity studies. During her time here, she will be taking over our social media pages and blog posts. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for pictures, news and exciting information about what we have been up to!

Again, welcome to all of our volunteers, and we hope you enjoy your time in France with us!

A picture captured by Eilidh on her first night with us

A picture captured by Eilidh on her first night with us

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Thank You USA and Australia for helping

Americans and Australians join forces in France

Thank You Thank You Thank You!!

We love to show appreciation to all our volunteers who have volunteer with us in France. La Giraudière wouldn’t function as successfully or be as diverse without our mix of volunteers. So as a thank you, we are giving a shoutout to 2 sets of friends from different sides of the globe!

Firstly we have Sara-Jane and Megan from the USA. These lovely American ladies were only here for one week, but they were a massive help during their stay. They spent their time working on our beautiful garden and helping our new flowers from the market settle into their new environment. During their down time, they took full advantage of our on site bikes and headed down into Brossac to enjoy some ice cream in the sun. We really hope you enjoyed your stay and you come back for longer next year.

Secondly, we say “merci” to Vivienne and Jill from Australia. These two Ausssies visited us for four weeks and they fitted right in.They both undertook different jobs, Vivienne did our housekeeping and Jill worked in both the garden and the office, and every task they undertoook with so much enthusiasm. They were very friendly and a great asset to the LG family. When they had some free time, they visited a number of places including La Rochelle and Chalais Chateau. Thank you for everything and we hope you returned to Australia safely!

Group photo in Pons volunteers on the way to La Rochelle

Group photo in Pons on the way to La Rochelle

Again a big thank you to our American and Australian volunteers for helping out here in France

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France China alliance starts at La Giraudière

La Giraudiere’s Franco Chine “culture exchange

On Wednesday the 1st August 2018 La Giraudiere’s Franco Chine alliance kicked off. This year 2018 is the start of a partnership between an association in China and Les Amis De La Giraudiere,

Vincent, Dankie, Winnie and Ivy arrived at La Giraudière. There were six people there from England, America, Thailand. They had lunch together and got familiar with each other. IMG_7852
later Paul had a conversation with them, they could choose what they wanted to do at La Giraudière, such as gardening, landscaping, book keeping, painting and so on.

France China Alliance

Volunteers Group Meeting

Vincent was a college student whose major was gardening,  so he chose landscaping, His task was to cut hedges,  that was quite a different experience for him. Vincents Chinese name is Tangkan Li and he is from Nanning in China.

vincent

Dankie was weeding that day,the girl in blue hair was so funny, she thought weeding was so interesting because she has never done that before. Dankie who’s Chinese name is Dan Luo is from Guangdong province of China

dunkie

Ivy was doing accounting, Paul would show her how to do it first, she loved this volunteering job so much because she could learn french as well. Ivy’ Chinese name is is Tao Chen and she is a teacher from Chongqing in China

ivy

Winnie chose social media because she loved photographing, she was a nice girl and got along well with other people so easy. Winnies chinese name is Wenyi Sun and she is from Shanghai in China.

winnie

The start of the Franco Chine alliance starts at La Giraudiere in the small village of Brossac in South west France.

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Another Departure of a Volunteer at La Giraudière

Another Departure of a Volunteer at La Giraudière

Today at La Giraudière, we yet again had to wave goodbye to a long-time volunteer, Christine. This was Christine’s fourth stay at La Giraudière, so it’s certainly not her first farewell to this place, but we will still miss her dearly.

During her time here as a volunteer, Christine has helped out with every task available at La Giraudière, from gardening to shopping to housekeeping to accounting. In addition to all of the above, she has also many a time acted as chauffeur for the many volunteers at La Giraudière.

Christine says that she enjoyed sharing the French experience with others, and greatly valued the experience she gained from accounting and gardening. For her, the volunteer experience was overall a pleasant and magnificent sejour.

Volunteer Christine with her certificate

Volunteer Christine with her certificate

We have enormously appreciated the extended contributions Christine has made to this program – not only through her tireless work, but also through her positive energy that encouraged others around her and her dedication to whichever task was at hand. We hope that Christine will return again soon for her fifth stay at La Giraudière, and wish her the very best wherever she travels to next.

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