22 May - 14 June
For those keeping up, you will
remember my first volunteer experience did not contain much volunteering. Sure, I saw a great place, and met lovely
people, and it was in an amazing setting and I did awesome things. But, if we were scoring purely on
volunteration, it was a sure fail.
I wanted to get my hands dirty, I
wanted to contribute, I wanted to heal the world and make it a better place, so
onwards to volunteering opportunity number 2.
If one is looking for ‘off the beaten track’ (and I was), Varinath farms
couldn’t fit more squarely into that category.
Kind of like putting a square peg into a square hole.
The closest bus stop to the farm
is a small village called Damta. I
challenge you to go find Damta on any ’10 things you must see in India’, or ’32
places you need to see before you die’ list.
Now, no disrespect to Damta. It
is a no more to blame for being a small, insignificant village than Denzel
Washington can be hated for being perfect (bad example, no one hates
Denzel). We all just play the cards we
are dealt.
But I digress. So, from Damta, where there is no cell
signal, I was told to meet at the sweet shop.
This would have been easier if I read the message from the host properly
beforehand, which said, "There is no signal in Damta, meet at the sweet
shop". After struggling for 30 minutes,
climbing up and down stairs, hanging off the side of buildings, standing on one
leg, I got some signal and received the same message from him, which was
delivered previously, and duly proceeded to the shop.
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| The famous Chauhan sweet shop, in the more famous Damta |
I found the shop easily (Damta, the metropolis, has one sweet shop), and sat down, waiting for my host, who said he would be
delayed, as he was having car trouble.
Drawing many stares, and clearly the source of many conversations among the
locals, I sat around for an hour, waiting patiently. Politely, and despite my intrusion - without explanation - I was left alone by the staff, who had a stranger just come into their shop and sit down for an hour. I did managed to communicate with the staff there
to serve me some food (mostly out of guilt for sitting in their shop for so long) – because I pointed to the plate of someone else who was
eating. But for the most part, I sat waiting.
The host, and his three friends
arrived, and after their eating lunch, and some errands in the city, we started
on the next leg of our destination – a 16km drive to an even smaller village,
called Dhuink. My host and his friend (the
two others boarded a bus in Damta, to Dehradun, in case you were worried) had
apparently been hiking for the last few days, in addition to running errands in
nearby villages, and were quite tired.
So, we rested in Dhuink for a while.
Arriving in Damta at 12pm, and after all the delays, and resting, we
started the final leg to our destination – a 4km hike up a mountain – at 6pm.
At first I thought they were just
joking, messing with the new kid, but this was every much a 4km hike a mountain
with all my bags, as you can imagine a 4km hike up a mountain with all my bags would be. In addition to this fact – owing to our late start – we did the final 90
minutes in the dark. Fun times. Arriving after 9pm at the farm, I was too
tired to view my surroundings, and went straight to bed.
Arising in the morning though, I
could immediately appreciate that all the travelling the day before was worth
it. Literally, on top of a mountain, the
farm looks out onto rolling hills of Uttarkhand. There are a few villages in the distance, but
this as remote as one could hope for.
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| Our rooms / the old cow shed, Varinath farm |
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| View of the apple orchard, Varinath farm |
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| Contemplating life as a farmer, Varinath farms |
The farm is little over a year
old, and there is much to do, but they have already made some progress. A pond was dug before the previous rainy
season, and catered for the washing and irrigation needs. From the rooms – which has been converted
from what was previously a cow shed, you look out onto wheat and barley fields,
and scattered around the farm, and more abundantly lower down, are apple trees
– which the farm plans to sell as their cash crop.
Being on top of a mountain comes
with its challenges, like firstly being away from any shops or supplies. Therefore, anything that is on the farm, or
that you would like, has to be brought up, which means a 4km hike down the
mountain, and 4km hike up, with your supplies.
Also, there is no fresh water.
Fresh water comes from a stream, a 1km walk down from the farm. This is an easy 20 minute stroll, but a far
more difficult 45 minute climb back up, with 20L on your back. We needed to fill up with fresh water about
every 4 days.
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| Showering and washing at the waterhole |
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| Sharing is caring at our waterhole |
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| Watching the cricket world cup, while the washing dries (the best signal is at the waterhole) |
Also, as summer had stretched on,
and the monsoon was delayed for about two weeks, the pond was drying up fast,
so water was used as sparingly as possible, with priority given to irrigation,
and therefore, for the most part, showers happened on water collection days
too. However, one soon comes to embrace
the natural ways of it all, and being on top of a mountain, really, who cares.
We did though have electricity,
provided by solar panels on the roofs of the rooms, and even some cellphone reception, if you stood at the right angle.
Mostly, either the host, or the
friend were on the farm, and they directed tasks for the day. There is also a young caretaker, who is
permanently on the farm. He really does
need a special mention, as he was really a great source of entertainment and
energy. Being 23, he had more energy
than he knew what to do with, and being from another village (500km away), he
had a keen love for the rural way of farm life. And
also, so kind and caring, and happy. In
trying to make you understand Souraj, I can only describe him as straight out
of the jungle book. Whether it was
climbing a tree to cut wood, making meals, or general banter, you could see he was so comfortable in his surroundings. I am so glad to
have met, and made a friend of Souraj.
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| Souraj, the legend |
Some volunteers came and went
during my stay of almost a month, there was a militant (Spanish and Swedish)
vegan couple, and a digital concept designer from Brazil, but they lasted about
a week. A Frenchman came for about 2
weeks, and had extensive knowledge of permaculture and farming, and had been
volunteering on farms for the last two years.
I learnt a lot about permaculture from him.
Farm life, especially on a new
farm, is very busy, and again, being on top of a mountain, most tasks are
manual. Chores including fetching wood
from the forest (which meant Souraj finding the right wood, Souraj cutting it down, and us lugging it
back), which was used for the clay oven as well as construction and other farm
related needs; deweeding, which was hours in the potatoe fields; harvesting
mustard, learning how to harvest and thresh barley; building and laying floors
and a chicken coop from a mud mixture of clay, water, grass, and cow dung, and cow urine for good measure; protecting produce from animals and pest by putting shiny
tinsel in trees (which did not work at all) and covering them with nets; and
building a big ass new pond (we had a machine digging, but shoveling all the
sand out was done by us, and for a 150,000L pond, this works up a bit of a sweat.
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| Sunny (one of the owners), and me after a potatoe deweeding sesh |
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| Digging up clay for the chicken coop |
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| Collecting cow dung and urine for the chicken coop construction |
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| Building the walls of the chicken coop |
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| Harvested and tied barley bale |
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| The pond digging crew |
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| Post-afternoon digging sesh |
I hope not to forget sitting in
the mustard field, or threshing barley, listening to music, being brought
apricots by a neighbour, fresh from the tree after an afternoon pond-digging
session; brushing teeth at night looking at the night sky; fighting a forest
fire (yip 😊); or changing compost toilets after the last
one got full (farming isn’t all sunshine and unicorns).
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| View of the Himalayas from the kitchen |
All in all, we worked hard, I got
very fit, but it was really fulfilling.
The setting of the place was more than one can ask for, to get back into
nature, which made sunrises and sunsets unbelievable.
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| Popcorn surprise last meal, for me and Pierre (the French volunteer) |
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| Sunsets at Varinath farm |
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