It has been 7 months since I have returned to my home country from the Weltwaerts program, and I would be lying if I didn’t say it feels like just yesterday that I was packing my bags. I was a volunteer in Berlin, Germany for a year and worked with Lebenshilfe, a social organisation that assisted people with disabilities and helped them to be more involved in the community. 

The opportunity to be able to live in another country, experience its culture, share mine and also to serve society has taught me so much. This experience has enabled me to grow so much personally as an individual as well as professionally. It has opened up my mind, thoughts, perspectives in ways that I did not understand before.

Since Berlin is a very international city, I got to meet and learn from not just the locals, but also many people from around the world, and learn a little from all of their cultures and lifestyles.

Returning to India after a whole year of indulging in a foreign culture was not very easy for me. The first few months, all I could do was compare everything happening around me between the culture that I had just experienced, and the culture I come from, right from clean air and pollution, traffic discipline, the transport system, safety, noise, food and even freedom to express one’s self! Trust me it was not an easy transition.

Over the past couple of months, while trying to re-adjust to my culture, I have had the time to realise that both cultures have their fair share of good and bad, if they didn’t then we would all be the same, and what fun is that? It is our differences that make us want to experience and learn from each other.

Yes, of course, life in Berlin was very different. I got to decide whom I wanted to meet, what I wanted to eat and when. I could go out for a walk without having to inform anyone that I was doing so, return home at any time of the night without having to worry people, or without having to feel unsafe, experience a real independent lifestyle, while having to do my own dishes and laundry, make my own meals and grocery shop for myself.

Experiencing all of these helped me unleash a new part of myself where I got to explore more of who I could be. Coming from a culture where I have always been surrounded by people (either friends or family) it has played a big role in me letting the people around me define the type of person I am, but living in Berlin has shown me who I truly am, or have the potential to be when I am alone and surrounded by nobody.

This helped me understand who I was and pushed me to grow into the person I would like to be. As much as I did enjoy experiencing all of this and living independently, there was a part of me that missed the warmth of my Indian culture very much, like constantly having people around me to care for me, especially when I was sick, my mother’s cooking and not having to worry about a thing because mum was around, unplanned meet ups with friends, the warm Indian weather and random conversations with random auto annas.

I thought the best way to be able to make use of all that I have experienced during my volunteer year, is to be able to share my experience with others, especially those looking to have a similar experience to mine, or those trying just trying to experience something different from their usual routine. So I realised what better way to do this than to help contribute through the organisation that gave me this opportunity and sent me to Germany.

I am now interning with my host organisation FSL–India, assisting them in the Outbound Department in making these opportunities known to more people, so that they can make use of it and be blessed from it like I was. This experience has been helping me continue to grow as a person and have fun.

Berlin helped me step out of my comfort zone, explore myself, think for myself, to actually use my voice, grow as an individual and learn to be independent. While India has inculcated in me the importance of family, friends, and just in general, how wonderful it is to bond with people.

This experience has made me view my culture in a different way, be thankful for it and take a lot of pride in it. While also being able to bring back the wonderful parts that I experienced and learned from the German culture and practice it alongside mine.