First Impressions of India

     It has now been two weeks since we arrived here in Tamil Nadu, and I feel as though I am still adjusting to the lifestyle here. I am located just outside a small town called Batlagundu in a very small village called Chinnupatti with about 500 inhabitants. I work with two other volunteers, one from the States and one from Switzerland, we get along very well! The farm I am working at was just relocated to this location in the middle of December, so we are actually the first volunteers here ever. This creates a lot of excitement in the village and everytime we go from one place to another we attract a big group of people. Everyone knows our names but I am only starting to learn some of their names. It is a Christian village so the names are not to hard to remember :) The village people have definitely accepted us and are very nice.

 

The Farm

 Our wild cattle

 A section of a banana plantation we are converting

  Our Swiss Volunteer with some locals

   It is very interesting to see a farm being started from scratch, and we have been involved in almost all of it. Just the other day we bought some cows which was a very interesting experience. We went to many villages and talked to farmers in order to get a local breed as well as a good price. This took a very long time, but now we are very happy to have two cows and a calf on the farm. We also have three sheep which were already there when I arrived.

     The goal of the farm is to promote organic agriculture by having a Model Farm for local school kids and farmers to see first hand. We also travel around to farmers and have started to convert sections of their farms to sustainable organic agriculture. This is not easy considering everyone is dependent on chemicals and many are not willing to risk their lively-hood. But some are slowly allowing us to apply our techniques on their land. Just last week we installed a vermi-unit on our neighbor farm. Another aspect of this farm is reforestation. We plant trees along roads in order to improve the landscape.

A Typical day on the Farm 

If we are not woken up by the loud villagers we wake ourselves up and start at 700. At 830 we get breakfast and and then its back to work until lunch, which is around 1230. Then we are given a break until 1430, which is nice because it is pretty hot at that time of the day. At 1700 we call it a day and at 1900 we are once again spoiled with the amazing food of south India. We are always served our food and every-time we start running low on something we are served more, it is very strange in the beginning but have managed to get used to it. Progress can be slow at times but over all I feel we are making progress and am really happy to be part of it.
    
     India is an amazing country with incredibly different cultures. It is great to be able to experience it first hand in this way!

Sebastien