India
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We are a small Indian Family and some Friends who started a little Organic farm in the middle of a small village in the northeast of India in the state of Assam. We had the initial idea for the farm in February 2017. After a lot of planning, we started really working on it in 2018 and have continued ever since. We focus mainly on fruits like Papayas, Mangoes, Pomegranate, Oranges, Pineapples and many more but also have some vegetables and herbs. We also have some honeybees and free-range chickens.
We are also currently in the process of building some more Bamboo huts in order to Create a little Hostel for travelers. The next goal is basically to finish the garden according to permaculture and organic rules as wells as integrate some more living areas into it in order to have a little piece of paradise for volunteers and guests alike in the middle of this little village.
Future goals include growing the area that we have under production either by buying more land or leading by example and integrating neighboring families into the project. As well as developing a network of hiking trails and homestays in this area for guests to more easily experience this part of India.
Gardening
Building
General Maintenance
Cooking / shopping
Farmstay
Help with Eco project
Art project
Cultural:
India is massive, it's the size of Europe and is at least equally packed with different cultures and histories. The northeast of India is distinctly different from the “mainland” and far fewer people travel here. The seven sister states and Sikkim that make up the northeast are full of different tribes, food, and people. By visiting us you have the chance to get to know some of the tribes and foods, and we can help you plan your trip around to get to know more.
The Farm:
You can learn some things about the traditional way of farming here in Assam. For example the entire process of growing Rice or making sugarcane sugar. We can also teach you some things about organic farming, composting and permaculture.
Gardening:
We try to focus mainly on Perennial plants (Plants that don't die after the season is over, examples include a lot of Herbs and Fruit trees who simply keep giving) in order to the reduce the workload in the long run. We do however also plant some Annual vegetables in the kitchen garden. Growing those seedlings, working the soil, planting them and harvesting would be part of the work in the garden. We also have to deweed some areas and cover them with mulch afterward. Nothing backbreaking and we do take a lot of breaks, especially during the hot season.
Farmstay:
Basically the same as in Gardening. Work ranges from Planting to Harvesting and working on some specific projects. For example, right now we try to build a Clay Pizza oven next to the bonfire place where we gather in the evenings. Other Projects right now include “air layering” which is the process of producing new baby plants from grown fruit trees in this case and last but not least forming a channel system on the farm to redirect rainwater.
Art Project:
Once the Guest Huts are ready we do need Artists to beautify them with paint jobs or other art. Until then we are planning to build bamboo archways and pavilions and grow perennial flower vines along them to basically create living and colorful art installations.
Building:
For the Guest huts, we thought about building with a mix of bamboo and adobe as well as a Palm leaf roof. This is going to be a bit of hard work and especially the clay part is going to be dirty and fun.
Cooking:
Depending on the number of volunteers at any given moment we would probably need help in the kitchen Preparing the meals. This basically consists of cutting vegetables & fruits, helping to cook them and afterward cleaning everything up again. This is mostly easy work just time-consuming which is why we need help with it especially since there is a new baby in the family. The good thing is that you will learn some traditional Indian and Assamese dishes you can show off at home.
General Maintenance:
Depending on the season there are some minor tasks that have to be done somewhat regularly to keep everything we have built so far running smoothly and avoid big breakdowns in the future that would cost a lot of effort and time. Things like deweeding, fixing clay walls, fixing parts of the pathways after heavy rain as well as cutting down some of the biomass producing plants we planted for exactly this reason to produce more mulch and compostable material.
Hindi, Assamese, Mising, English, German & Spanisch
The accommodation is a room in a traditional bamboo hut. It is very basic (please see the photos) but save and how People live here.
Even in the winter the temperatures never drop below 10C during the night and we have enough blankets to ensure a warm night. The Indian style bathroom is next to the bamboo hut in a smaller hut. The shower is in a third area, pls be aware that we don't have warm water at the moment. It would be possible to warm water over a fire, however.
We offer two meals every day (lunch and dinner), almost all of them are vegetarian or vegan. We don't have wifi jet but there are prepaid SIM cards available in the village and the connection is generally very good.
We generally work from 6 am to 11 am. That ensures that we avoid the heat of the day and also gives you a lot of time in one block to have a look around the village. Local transport is readily available and consists of local minibusses, intercity buses and a train that connects us to Guwahati and thus the rest of India. The closest airports would be Guwahati (+8h overnight train ride) or Dibrugarh (+2 hour bus ride).
Within walking distance, we have a village full of traditional life. A bit further away we have a nice river to swim in and the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh. The next bigger City is only around 30 minutes by bus.
The world's biggest river island (Majuli) is reachable within a day. Cherrapunji, the former wettest place on earth is also reachable within 24 hours. There you can visit the living Bridges and do some hiking.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
More than two
Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 5 days a week
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