Once upon a time, in a country far away, beyond deep waters and lofty mountains, dry deserts and vast forests, five brave youngsters decided to leave their country and work abroad for one year.

After a long and exhausting journey they arrived in India, Sagar Nagar to be exact.

Here we are: Paula, Rosa, Johannes, Moritz and Henrik.

Since August we have worked at the Balamitra School (except Paula, she is working in the Samata office).

According to our interests and skills we teach different subjects like music, form drawing, painting, crafts and sports.
Furthermore each one of us is responsible for one of the four English classes.

The English lessons stretch from basic language skills and the alphabet to more complicated grammatical structures and a verbose vocabulary.

We really enjoy the time we spend in school, mostly because of the good relation with the children and our colleagues, which becomes more and more closer.

Besides the regular tasks of teaching and preparing the lessons, we also had different possibilities to get more in touch with the tribals, who are living in the villages.

In September we were supporting the Balamitra School team during a teachers training program with different games, songs and rhythmic activities.

Another chance for us to learn a little more about the Adivasi culture and the problems tribal people face was the Youth Camp in October.

Besides games of trust and skills, which we played with the participants, we talked about the youth in the villages and in Germany and answered questions about the daily life.

Besides the Adivasi culture also the Indian culture as such is very interesting for us.

Almost every day we learn something knew about a Hindu god, a religious ritual or the typical south Indian food.

We are very thankful that we can attend all the festivals, which are celebrated in the Balamitra School, for example the Ganesha Pooja or the Independence Day.

For the Diwali Festival we were asked to prepare something for the children.

So we made a “Spiral of Lights” out of sand like the former volunteers did last year. The children and all the visitors had to light a candle in the middle of the spiral and put it into the sand until the whole spiral was full of light.

We also wanted to arrange something new and so we converted two of the classrooms into a room for sensual experiences.

The participants had to cover their eyes before they entered the room.

We led the through the room to discover different stations, where they could feel hard and soft, warm and cold things with their hands or feet.

In the end they got to the second room, in which they could light a walnut-candle, listen to the guitar-play of Johannes and enjoy the calm atmosphere.

We really enjoyed the evening and all of us are looking forward to the coming festivals.

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