Summer Project at Mount Rosary Farm
Most of the time I am working at a teaching project at the southern part of the west coast in a town called Udupi. But now there are summer holidays and therefore school is closed. In the meantime, I joined another volunteer coming from Germany as well, named John, at his work at a farm about two hours away.
There I was first introduced to our project contact person, Sister Priscilla , working at the farm, the office and the nearby hospital. Since I arrived at a Sunday and church was already over, today there was no work for us and John gave me a tour of the farm, showing me around the fields and plantation, but the highlight most definitely were the cows, chickens, pigs and goats, with which I would work care for the next four weeks. Some tasks we had to do every day, but some others were always different.
We always start our day with bringing the goats to a place where they can find fresh plants, after that we fed the chickens. Throughout the day different tasks followed, like cutting firewood and store it at a place safe from the heavy rains of the coming monsoon season, but also collecting cashew nuts or transforming the animal’s dung into fertilizer. Between all those activities we had breaks with cold fresh-made juice and most important lunch. Finally, we went with our sickles to the field to cut a bunch of grass for the cows to eat during nighttime, when they were locked in their stable.
During the weekends we either got visited by other volunteers or went to the next town strolling around or going to the cinema.
We also spent lots of time with an Indian boy our age, living here to study. Every Sunday we were invited to join the mess at 06:10 in the morning.
When we were not outside, doing work for university or something else we were enjoying the various treats of the kitchen.
We are free for the next week and planning on doing a trip to the state to the south of our current location Karnataka, Kerala.