By Tingky (Class of 2025)
Living in a diverse place like MUWCI makes me love learning new things every day and embracing diversity in my daily life. I got to study in the same class with different nationalities, which made me enjoy learning a lot from the class itself and from the conversations I had with my friends from other countries. Yet, I realise that even living in this diverse place like MUWCI is not enough for me actually to understand or deeply explore Indian culture and traditions. Therefore, I decided that during winter, I would spend time in India finding some volunteering work or internship in order for me to experience India outside of campus myself.
I had come across the organic farm in Pune called Kamba Farm through one of my second-years who was there during her first year. Once I visited this farm, I fell in love with the beautiful greenery in the middle of the mountain in Kambre village, surrounded by a friendly and welcoming foreign couple, ladies (village women who work on the farm) and animals. As I am personally passionate about living in nature apart from the MUWCI campus, this was also a great experience for me to learn more about agriculture and explore the background story of a German couple, alongside getting new friends and lovely kids in the village. I spent my whole winter at a slow pace, something I could not find in the lively campus, learning the way of organic farming, reading books, teaching English to the children, chit-chatting with the ladies each day, looking after the ducklings, and planting trees and vegetables from many varieties species and even listening to genius jokes from my host father every day.
Gradually, Kamba Farm became my favourite place in India, where I found people I could trust and talk to. It also taught me a lot about the essential meaning of life and made me reflect on every decision in the past. I would say Kamba Farm left a big impact on me personally and on the people in the village.
We are Antje and Hans Michael a german couple living in India. From 2014 onwards we have had MUWCI students with us over their winter break and otherwise also. We have established a simple system to have a steady flow of students: each year a second year brings a first year which in turn, in the year that follows, will bring another first year. Worked nicely so far! We’re in touch to-date with many of our “MUWCIs” and are always happy to know they are doing fine. Since 2023, we are hosting the students on our farm some 50 Km South of Pune. Those who stayed on the farm with us enjoyed it a lot. Obviously there is not much partying or fancy nightlife. Instead greenery, seven dogs, a black cat, sheep, goats, ducks and geese. We’re always curious what the next batch brings! Why we do it? It keeps us in touch with the same age group over time. Different from our own children who have grown up and makes it exciting to stay “in touch”.
– German couple at Kamba Farm
