With the loss of facebook you may get them.
I asked Noah how he felt about the distribution of our time on the WWOOF year. I want to spend time in South America, Africa, and Asia. He said he wasn’t sure about Africa because he knows the least about it. This morning of research lets me know that in order to get by in most of Africa we would have to know some French.
Oh shit.
South America sounds so awesome. I’m not fluent in Spanish but I know enough to get by and communicate reasonably well with patient people.
French scares me. Oh god.
I think I’m going to have to do it.
Bummer. I’ve been avoiding French for thirty years. It sucks to change such a good streak at this point.
Morocco. Madagascar. Tunisia. Don’t those sound like places worth seeing?
Shit. I’m going to need French. Oh this will be hilarious.
why does french scare you?
I have a tremendous fear of inadequacy and I am terrible at the accent.
I’ve been fine w english only in South Africa, Uganda, Botswana, and Rwanda. Next up: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Ethiopia. You could be just fine without french.
There are currently WWOOF sites listed in: Cameroon, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Uganda, Egypt, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia.
More than half of them that I have read so far require French. It’s not just about being able to get around in the country. We first need a host family that will take four people (a tall order) then we need a set of activities we are well suited for (another tough sell)… we need French. 🙂 It narrows the pool beyond the point of being useful.
I don’t get the impression you have spent a lot of time trying to learn the various farming methods. 🙂
The nice thing about French is how similar to Spanish it is – it would take some work, but probably not nearly as much as it sounds like. On the other hand, there are so many people with at least a rudimentary knowledge of English that you can probably get by just fine with neither French nor Arabic.
My dad just got back from a trip that included visiting family friends in Egypt. I have really fond memories of Cairo and Alexandria from the late 70s, early 80s. Most of the other places we visited in Africa back then, there’s just no good or safe way to do it anymore.
I feel kind of mixed about the fact that I am almost certainly going to be bringing my kids to some places that are technically not perfectly safe. We’ll see how it goes.
I don’t think your posts are too long.
🙂