Much of the information in the following article has been passed through more than three coffee filters. 😉
I had a countdown on my laptop long before I left, counting down the days until my flight to Chennai. I still have the same countdown in the same place, only now it counts the days that have passed since the flight. One hundred days now. One hundred days in India. One hundred days in a completely different culture to the one I was used to in Germany. The climate, the smells, the people. The village I live in and, of course, the cows on the streets and how they stare at me with their shining eyes as soon as dusk falls and I light them up with my bicycle lamp as I ride along the road.
For me, the first hundred days were characterized by being overwhelmed. I realized how little I had really thought about the fact that I was going to spend a year in a country that was so different from what I was used to. I think I was afraid to mentally prepare myself for it, but somehow it still felt like it wasn’t the wrong decision to take part in the project. So I let everything come to me, I consciously just let myself be thrown into it, into the plane. During the flight, it felt as if I was standing between two worlds, one familiar and one of which I only knew the outlines. From stories told by friends and relatives. And, of course, through the good, laborious preparation of the two one-week seminars that we took part in as a group in Germany beforehand. This ’standing between two worlds‘ gave me a very queasy feeling in my stomach during the entire flight. And yet the anticipation of the adventure was clearly palpable. You could see it in our group, until tiredness outweighed the anticipation for some. One stewardess told a fellow volunteer and me how she had traveled to India alone after completing her A-levels, which earned her a lot of respect from us.
Shortly afterwards, our plane landed successfully. As soon as I got off the plane, I was hit by a wave of heat and humidity, so I needed a drink of water. The palpitations and hoping for no complications at visa control, the wait for the suitcases, the first steps outside the air-conditioned airport building in search of the cab driver in the middle of the night. The first culture shock, through the eternally long drive on the highway from Chennai out into the countryside, towards Auroville.
There were too many new impressions all at once, so one or two days after arriving in Auroville I just started crying out of nowhere and I didn’t even know why. The jet lag lasted for about three days. In the first week, we stayed at the Center Guest House and were shown around Auroville and the surrounding area by our mentors on the bicycles we had borrowed.
In the first two weeks of work, my project manager, Ok, was still in Italy for work and Valerie, my colleague and former weltwärts volunteer, was also unavailable. My fellow volunteer and flatmate, Tabea, and I were welcomed by a colleague on our very first working day. Looking back, our working day in the first week was still very relaxed.
On Monday of the following week, Tabea and I got to know Ok and we went straight into the ‚Monday Meeting‘. I was inundated with information and was immediately given responsibility for the Instagram account, which could almost be a full-time job in itself. These meetings take place once a week. They are often stressful due to the language barrier, so there were communication problems from time to time. Right from the start, I had difficulties communicating with my project manager.
My working day starts with me getting on my bike at around 8:50 am and jetting off to the studio. I usually arrive shortly before 9am. On Monday, we start at 9am with the aforementioned ‚Monday Meeting‘. The first thing we discuss is what’s on the agenda for the coming week. If workshops are planned that will take place in the studio or in a school, any outstanding questions are clarified. At the beginning of the meeting, a list of the products sold in the store in the Visitor Center in the previous week is drawn up for the first time. This is followed by a list of products that need to be produced in the coming week. These replenished products either arrive in the store on Wednesday afternoon or are presented on the following Monday and then restocked on Wednesday. In addition, everyone has to come up with a new product every week and prepare a sample or at least a sketch. Depending on how much is due in the coming week, the meeting can last half an hour or two and a half hours. After the meeting, the actual work starts. This week on Monday, for example, I immediately started making the first six key rings from tin can openers.
I then have a lunch break from 12 noon to 2 pm. But sometimes I go to work half an hour earlier and leave the studio earlier instead. At lunchtime, we meet the other volunteers in the Solar Kitchen (Auroville’s canteen). Aurovillians from YouthLink often sit at our table too. It’s always interesting and entertaining to talk about the day-to-day work of the others.
From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., everyone usually works on their products for the store. After that, I still have an hour to tidy up in the studio’s storageroom or use for other purposes (e.g. for the Instagram account).
As far as the organization of my free time is concerned, I can say that it is integrated into my everyday life in a very varied way. Ranjana, a friend and work colleague of mine, once took me to the so-called ‚playhood‘. This is about giving people space to have fun playing again without feeling any pressure to perform. Through this experience, I rediscovered my love of sport and have been physically active again more often since then. I have also taken part in a Mixed Marshall Arts (MMA) course a few times. This is the continuation of the self-defense course that I did at the beginning with some others in my volunteer group. The course offers wrestling twice a week and kickboxing once. I also took my badminton racket with me from Germany, which I am very happy about. There is a group of people who regularly play badminton at Certitude Sports Ground and I really want to join them. Apart from that, a fellow volunteer and I went running together a few times early in the morning. It was surprisingly fun (for me). I’ve never really liked running before, but suddenly had a very strong urge to do it and have been an early riser ever since.
In addition to sport, I have also been going to an open art class on Saturday afternoons for a month now, which has been very close to my heart since the beginning and which I will definitely continue to attend. Apart from that, I also enjoy going to Pondy with friends and discovering new corners of the city.
Accepting that the year so far has turned out differently than I had imagined is probably my biggest challenge at the moment. This applies to both my work in the studio and my free time. My goals for the year, which I had roughly put together in my head, have therefore had to be interpreted differently or less concretely. However, I have also realized that working in the studio teaches me even more about working on projects with my fellow human beings as a collective. The work also helps me to learn to communicate better and more precisely. I am also learning to deal constructively with comments in order to optimize my working methods. I also learn to look at situations from a distance and to keep changing my perspective before making my own judgments and decisions.
And yet I am grateful for this and so many other experiences, because in the end it only helps me move forward. The fact that I have such incredibly great people by my side to help me as I grow makes me happy every day. The many little moments in which I don’t worry and enjoy my life make me happy. And that I can share the memories with the people I have grown to love. Because when things aren’t going so well for me, I can remember them.
A snapshot:
The monsoon has already started a few days ago and the people who are outside are riding through the wet streets in rain ponchos, on their motorcycles and in flip-flops. I’m also wearing a rain jacket as I sit on my bike on my way home from an MMA class at the Dehashakti Gym. There are a few cows at the side of the road looking for something edible among all the plastic waste. Then I come to the sign for ‚Edayanchavadi‘ and the traffic jams at the penultimate bend in the road. Cows, a few cars and lots of bikes gather. Everyone wants to get on as quickly as possible, while the cows remain calmly standing on the road. And then the traffic jam has already cleared – I’ll be home soon – Mirant is among the group of bikes. He looks confused for a moment, then we almost pass each other and while I start to smile a little, he recognizes me and passes me again at the same moment. When I get home, I unpack my new rucksack full of shopping and wash the mud and sweat off my body. I write to Mirant: „Did you recognize me on the street with my helmet, headlamp, rain jacket and black rucksack with at least 8 straps?“- „I’ve never felt more German“. Rosa comes out of her room and we start talking about our day, Tabea joins us and we sit together in my room, which has been collectively christened the living room, eat dinner together, chat about what’s on our minds and how quickly the time has already passed. A hundred days in India already. And yet it feels like I’ve only blinked once.
