Confessions of a Volunteer
There are good and bad things about living in community on the Isle of Iona. I’ve told you a lot of the very good things. This week the bad things got worse and it’s time to fess up and tell you.
There are residents in the Iona Community who live here full time. They head the departments and keep things running. We volunteers are their support. We work in all the areas under them: the shop, the sacristy, the kitchen, maintenance, and the like. The season at the Abbey is from the end of February to the middle of November. None of the volunteers stay the whole time. This means there is an ugly little secret: we have to say good bye to friends we’ve just made almost every week! It was one thing to say good bye to Rachel, Louis and Phil; I’d only known them a week. But then I had to say goodbye to Kate and that was not nice. It’s got even harder when Annaleise left. She overlapped with me for three weeks. Ooof.
This week I have to say goodbye to Ned and Naomi. WHY!!! The leaving makes room for new friends but yikes it’s tough. The pain of goodbye is not a deal breaker. I still jump in with both feet to meet and greet. Time on the island has a bendy stretchy quality to it. It feels like I’ve known some of these folks for ages when it’s only been weeks. Living here makes you want to go deeper from the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t take every moment seriously there is a lot of banter and silliness. Yet we manage to take the time to get to know a few souls more deeply. So when we have to say goodbye it’s hard.
Another true confession from this volunteer is I’ve been injured and it’s taken me weeks to recover. The first week I was here I fell hard and twisted my ankle. It was awful. I honestly thought I’d be sent home. Happily it was not a volunteering ending injury. I did limp around the kitchen for a couple days though. My ankle was stiff for over two weeks. I felt very old.
Happily there is a Sandra and her magic massage fingers. Because it was not just my twisted ankle that needed attention. I was not ready for how physical the kitchen job would be. I thought I could handle it. Yes, I can read a recipe and mix a cake. I can follow the instructions and produce a salad or dressing or even a batch of chili. However, the fact is, that is only a small portion of what happens in the kitchen.
Washing the mountain of dishes. Sweeping and mopping the floor. Walking back and forth and round and round all shift. Down a flight of stairs to the garden to harvest some rhubarb. Down and out again to dump the compost. Unloading the deliveries of food. Moving large heavy pots. Bend and check your cakes in the ovens. The list goes on. It’s a very physical job. I only knew that in my head. My body had to catch up.
I’ve told you of my kitchen triumphs, like just making it through a shift, but what about the disasters? Well there was one of note. I’ll confess now. For the evening meals two kitchen volunteers get the meal out without adult supervision (Anja and Declan are off). The instructions are written and the timings are carefully put out. It is very straightforward and little is left to chance. And yet there is room for error. In comes Lisa. I confidently switch on the ovens and the turn to cutting cake. My compadre join me and starts making the salad. Forty-five minutes later—fifteen minutes before the meal should be on the table—we discover the ovens have not been on!
Yikes! Clara happily rang the dinner bell ten minutes late. Andy happily talked a bit before saying grace for the meal. But then it was time to come clean. We told the guests that the meal would be delayed another 20 to 30 minutes. The food has to be served at the right temperature and we had to wait. No one was upset they spent time talking. Bonus smile: there was sticky toffee pudding for dessert. No one can stay mad at a cook who serves them sticky toffee pudding.
Last confession: I like my days off and I have put them to good use. But I really do love days in the kitchen when we are busy and making such delicious, nutritious food for our guests and the staff. It’s exhausting and sometimes every frustrating. But as my volunteer friend Annaleise said many times during our shifts together, “It’s very satisfying.” It is.