{"id":16004,"date":"2019-05-22T15:08:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T09:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/?p=16004"},"modified":"2019-05-29T11:44:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T06:14:44","slug":"farming-volunteers-and-fsl-india-2017-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/farming-volunteers-and-fsl-india-2017-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Farming, Volunteers and FSL-India 2017-18: Rahul Dayalu, Project Head, Shri Gurumahanteshwara \u2013 Sustainable Agriculture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our association with FSL-India has grown\nfurther in 2017 and 2018. FSL-India and their volunteers have already become an\nintegral part of our project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The farm was new and mostly barren in 2016-2017.\nThere was a lot of work that happened in that period, right from land\npreparation to the plantation of crops, putting fencing, building a farmhouse,\ninstalling our drip irrigation system, and so on. The village school\nmanagement, teachers and students were not used to foreigners. I was very\nskeptical and had many reservations about an overall plan of accepting\nvolunteers in our project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our very first batch of volunteers – Miriam\nNass, Thomas Hassler and Anja Bitter worked very hard to clear all our doubts\nand made sure the project sailed smoothly.  Shruthi was the FSL-India coordinator at the\ntime, and she was in constant touch with us and guided us in hosting the volunteers.\nFrankly speaking, the first batch of our volunteers set a benchmark in our\nproject for volunteers to come, over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2017, we contacted Manjunath, FSL-India\u2019s\ncoordinator at Mysore and he placed volunteers in our project. We have built a\ngreat relationship with Manjunath since then. We are indebted to him for his\nguidance, help and love towards our project. He has been very supportive and\naccommodating to our requests. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Selma Bruing was our first volunteer, very soft-spoken\nand emotional. She was excited with the project, but at the same time she was\ngoing through a tough phase with adjusting to the environment of volunteering\nin India. She harvested chillis and helped us utilise the waste plants in the banana\nfields. Selma along with Jette and Luisa attended a festival in our neighboring\nvillage, and stayed at our farm for a weekend to bid farewell to our project.\nWe wished her good luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jette was alone after Selma left, but we made\nsure that we gave her a good amount of work to keep her occupied. She was very\ninterested in Indian culture and the Hindu religion. So, our discussions were\nmostly on those topics. Jette was jovial, lighthearted and caring towards us.\nShe was fond of our cats and calf.  She\nwas a dear friend to our farm workers. We gave her a nickname \u2018Guruji\u2019, which\nmeans \u2018Hindu saint\u2019, for her love towards yoga and meditation, and made fun of\nher all the way. She cleared the field from waste plants, helped us in\nplantations, and distributed organic fertiliser over the farm crops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Her most outstanding effort was during the harvesting\nof turmeric. Our worker family had quit the job before the turmeric harvest and\nI was alone on the farm along with the support of a few daily women workers.  Jette understood the situation and supported\nme emotionally during those difficult days. We had to let go of our cows due to\nlack of maintenance. Jette went the extra mile to come early in the morning and\nleave a bit later than usual, and stood strong beside me along with my beloved\nfriends Manish and Roman, a volunteer during the summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We enjoyed working together and had a lot of\nfun with the women farm workers. The harvest brought us close and gave us an\nopportunity to know each other better. We made sure that we celebrated and\nenjoyed the harvest with evening parties in Mysore. She graced occasions,\nfunctions and festivals by wearing sarees. The sarees looked beautiful on her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jette, Luisa, my friend Manish, my brother\nRoshan and myself made a club for fun and parties. I have to write a few words\non Luisa, here. Even though she worked in a different project, she always made\nsure she was part of events, weekend stays and parties organised by Krushi Kutumba.\nShe was chock full of fun, and a strong woman at the same time. She showed her\nsensitive side during the farewell of Jette. She missed her so much. That is\nthe beautiful part of the volunteering program. You get a chance to work with\nnew people, a few of them in turn, become long-lasting friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are so lucky that most of the volunteers who\nworked in our project turned into family for us. This was evident when Miriam\nand Thomas who worked with us from December 2016 to April 2017, took some time during\ntheir holiday to visit us again. This is the best thing that happened to us\nthis year. The experience of reunion cannot be explained in words. We were\noverwhelmed by their love and affection towards us. We spent most of the time\ntogether during their visit and shared even more bonding than before. It was\nlike meeting a family member after a long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They were very happy and excited to see the\nprogress and changes brought into the project. Memories of the initial days of\nhard work and fun passed in front of our eyes. Our hearts sank and we felt so\nheavy when they left for Germany. In fact, every time our volunteers leave the\nproject, it creates an emptiness in us, and it takes a lot of time to sink in.\nThat is the kind of relationship we maintain with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, we have had an amazing year with the volunteers\nand FSL-India, the whole concept is moving towards building a commune on its\nown.  I hope and wish that FSL-India will\nagree to let the volunteers stay at the project, so that our vision of creating\na farm commune of volunteers who are totally dedicated to research, adapt and are\ntrained on the concepts of natural farming, sustainable living, rural economics\nand rural culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our association with FSL-India has grown further in 2017 and 2018. FSL-India and their volunteers have already become an integral part of our project. The farm was new and mostly barren in 2016-2017. There was a lot of work that happened in that period, right from land preparation to the plantation of crops, putting fencing, building a farmhouse, installing our drip irrigation system, and so on. The village school management, teachers and students were not used to foreigners. I was…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":16009,"comment_status":"Closed","ping_status":"Closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433,429],"tags":[747,488,748,552,427,485,276],"class_list":["post-16004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-study","category-ltv-bangalore","tag-intercultural-exchange-india","tag-make-new-friends","tag-organic-fertiliser","tag-plantation","tag-sustainable-agriculture","tag-vegetable-harvesting","tag-volunteering-in-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16004"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16135,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16004\/revisions\/16135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fsl-india.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}