We Felt Welcome All Along – Mathilde Maurichere, Work Camp volunteer at Balenahalli Tribal Village, Hunsur

We Felt Welcome All Along – Mathilde Maurichere, Work Camp volunteer at Balenahalli Tribal Village, Hunsur

I’m Mathilde, I’m 20 years old, and when, with 3 other friends from my school, we sat down in the plane, I didn’t know I was going to live the best experience of my life. How could I even imagine what I was going to live? 6 weeks of amazing meetings, 6 weeks to discover Indian and Karnataka culture, 6 weeks working at Ballenahalli’s work camp.

The first person we met was Manjunath, our team leader from FSL-India, the most attentive, helpful and nice person ever. He wanted us to feel at home, he invited us to see his family. Then we met our family in Hunsur, we bonded with every one of them. They were always giving us advice about where to go, what to do. Then we arrived at the village, we met the masons, the tribal community, the kids of the school. Everyone always smiling helped me.

When I was tired or a bit sad to be far from home, seeing people, seeing the kids always happy to see us enter the school, it was very nice! We felt welcome all along, even when we weren’t very good with the tools or with constructing. The masons used to laugh with us. Even if we didn’t always understand them because of the language, it was great to be with them.

But I’ve also discovered new food, new culture. We were invited to a Hindu temple for a festival, we visited a Ganesh statue’s construction, Tibetan temples and restaurants. We saw amazing landscapes, a waterfall; we went to see an Indian movie.

Every day we went to the village to work, it wasn’t always easy but it was always a pleasure to go. We knew we were being useful. We were a good group and that helps a lot. And the satisfaction when we could finally start the final painting was the best thing! All our work finally finished, when we saw the family smiling, that was it! We knew we had done a good work!

I would like to thank HILAP, the association of our school, the ESTP, Jeunesse and Reconstruction and FSL-India, who helped to make this experience possible for us. I would like to thank Lexane, Morgan and Riath, my friends from school, for their good mood and hard work.

I would like to thank our family in Hunsur, who made us feel at home. I would like to thank people from Balenahalli, and the kids from the school, for always smiling at us. I would like to thank the masons and Tiger, for joking and working with us. I would like thank Manjunath for always being here for us, and for being our friend.

If you would like to volunteer at Balenahalli Tribal Village, please contact camps@fsl-india.org

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