The grass does not shine as bright green on our surrounding hills anymore. While some cold towns in the U.S. are buried by mountains of heavy white snow, here, in Prashanthagiri, a powerful hot sun hovers over the fields. Those dark green and brown…
It started to rain heavily. Nevertheless, the children came. Big, grey clouds hovered over the beautiful lime green hills overlooking our yard. Despite the rain, the community’s children came happy. They walked up to Profugo’s Center of Development (COD) with big smiles unbothered by…
Our PDI’s community house was filled with fun, little giggles and loud laughter this past Saturday. We were celebrating Kerala’s Onam festivities with a day of games and entertainment for our community’s children. Onam is a long awaited Kerala holiday that commemorates the return of…
This Sunday our village was full of sounds. Firecrackers marked the beginning of the Hindu New Year according to the Malayam calendar in Kerala. Anxiously awaited by many of the children at our English classes, this “Vishu” Festival carries a very suiting (yet unorthodox)…
This past week we finished mapping the land that will soon house our Center for Development and our laboratory for various sustainable agricultural initiatives. Gilgy, our local project coordinator, and I climbed up the high slope of existing crops to measure the altitude and…
The bags are ready! The tailoring assessment period is over… contracts are signed! The six months tailoring project begins!!! AND… We already know 70 more words in Malayalam including: Budhimutt joli= hard work; thunni= fabric; and (my favorite!) uhchabashanam… oru mani!= (lunch time!) I’ve…
The children were giggling and screaming out the names of vegetables, fruits and flowers. It was an intense review game for our weekend English class in the rural community of Wayanad. Jessi, a community member and one of the Spoken English teachers had already…
This past Monday evening, Victoria and I met with a couple of young activists linked to the organizations Wiser Bangalore and Heal the Soil, a local organization that provides seeds and permaculture training to their community. They talked about their experience with local non-…
These first two weeks in Bangalore have been very exciting and incredibly hectic. For now, our team consists of our director, Jenny Koleth; her two little daughters who are 5 and 6 years old; Aunty, her mother in law; Victoria, the other volunteer, and me….