During their summer project in April and May, 12 volunteers met at Varanashi Organic Farms. Our working days started with putting out the cocoa to dry and after that, different kinds of work was done. Mainly, they we cleaned the water channels in the cocoa plantations for the rainy season.

Fridays were the cocoa pod opening days and later on, in May, we started to prepare the farm for a climbing event called “Psicobloc“. This is a form of solo rock climbing that relies solely upon the presence of water at the base of a climb to protect against injury from falls from the generally high-difficulty routes. The days ended with shifting the cocoa inside after drying. 

In our free time the Varanashi family once took us for a special Hindu festival at Puttur, where we spent an evening at a big fair. On another weekend, the host mother organised a little trip for us to an idyllic place with a temple.

The evenings we liked to spend at a bonfire along with some “stick bread“, or in one of the ponds. One evening, Sidd caught 2 wolf snakes and we got the chance to play with them in the tree-house. Everyone enjoyed this experience a lot and it opened our mind towards snakes