Incredible India: beautiful, crazy and shocking. My expectation of coming to India was to see a new part of the world and get to know about a new culture. After five months living and working in Kundapur my expectations are completely fulfilled.

The difference between visiting a country for holiday and living in the country for a longer time is, how you see the people after your trip. If you are staying in an Indian family you will get the best insight in the culture and the lifestyle of the people, and this was really important for me. So, I stayed now since five months in my lovely Indian host family only ten minutes far from my working place, the FSL Training Center in Kundapur. The family consists of my host mother Ravethi, my host siblings Rithika and Rishika and my host grandmother. Already on the first day there was a confusion, because I was brought with another volunteer Paul to our host families, which are neighbours and they exchanged the family. SO, first I was in the wrong family, but after some time I heard a scream from the other house and they told that I have to go to this house. Now, I’m very happy to stay in this host family and I had so many good experiences with them, which I will never forget. Before coming to India I cannot imagine that I will have such a nice work environment with FSL team. All of the people working in the Training Centre are so sociable and friendly that they make the time here in India very comfortable for me. I enjoyed work at every moment, because it was a good mix between physical and mental work and work with children. In India agriculture is different to the agriculture in Europe. It is more physical work than work with machines like in industrial countries. So we got faced to many challenges and we had to find solutions. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. But every time it’s strengthen the team, because we have to find a solution together. That’s why I really fall in love with all the people are working here in the SAP-K team.

India is the most different country I have ever been until now and I’m really happy that I made this decision. When somebody is asking about my best or my funniest experience here, I cannot give an answer. Because people have to make their own experiences here and this is only possible when you are staying in this country. Then you will get everyday so many experiences that you cannot remember in the evening what you learned this day.

Overall my volunteer service was perfect for me to take a break after school and before university. I have a good relationship to my host family, my work environment and my coordinator Gajendra. His work was also in Training Center, so I had every time the chance to go and have a talk with him about my challenges and problems. That was always a nice support from the side of FSL. I can recommend to everyone making a volunteer service with FSL, because it means fun, experience and entertainment.