A Backpacker's Saga - Small Joys of Volunteering

As a context to this blog post, it is mainly for people who understand the difference between travel and tourism.

Many a times I have heard people talk about how traveling is an expensive hobby and how it has been highly commercialized these days. This may be true if you plan to travel to touristy places or want to spend time with your family or friends. Today I intend to talk about travel in true travel sense when you are travelling for the experience of it, and not on a check list based itinerary.

I had planned my backpack trip towards the country side of western Germany. I may write a few more posts about various other experiences during this travel but today I want to start with talking about my volunteering experience on a farm.

I had applied for a few volunteering opportunities via workaway and got a prompt revert from Hof Zur Hellen farm. And at this point I didn’t have even a slightest idea of how memorable this trip would turn out to be.

The start to this trip itself was a memorable moment (out of the many yet to come). When I deboarded at the nearest railway station, I was the only one to board or de-board that train. I knew at this point that this was truly the place wanted to be. 😄

The farm was most picturesque landscape one could imagine. The place is owned by two brothers Ulrich and Alex, who lived on the farm with their families.

Daily we would meet in the morning with the whole team and be given tasks for the day. The meetings were all in German so it was hard to know what was being planned, and hence there was always some curiosity about the kind of work one would get for the day. But it was assured that no two days would be the same on this farm, with a variety of work available to be done.The work system was really relaxed, and volunteers did both shifts from 9.30am to 1pm and 2.30pm to 5pm.

Special mention here about my colleague volunteers, Miguel from Chile and Chiharu from Japan. As most of the time was spent with them, I got to understand the Chilean and the Japanese cultures too apart from German.  

I wanted to learn about organic farming so I spent most of my time working in the fields (weeding and also planting and harvesting) and in the green house (pruning and seeding). It was great to know how an organic farm works everyday (basically taking care of animals and collecting and selecting vegetables), also to get to practice the language, and to visit Köln and Düsseldorf in my free days, all beautiful cities nearby. Food here was great of course (everything was organic, healthy and tasted amazing). The kitchen was very well stocked and veggies could be taken from the cold store. There was also fresh milk and cheese everyday which was great.

One special incident which I would like to mention here is although the breakfast and dinner is prepared by individuals themselves, lunch however is prepared by one of the team member for the rest of the team and everyone has lunch together. I got a chance to prepare lunch once for the entire team and it was an experience of a lifetime to prepare food for 15 people without much prior preparation. Of course, I do prepare food at home sometimes, but never had made food for 15 people for sure! Such experiences only leave us enriched in our lives.

My room was quite big and in the attic, overlooking the picturesque landscape, which was a lovely and peaceful view. Both Ulli and Alex were very friendly, and I enjoyed spending time with their families in my spare time. I also spent some of my days off (weekends) at the café nearby, which had a nice atmosphere.

All in all, the two weeks spent on the farm would easily be one of the best travel times. The only cost of this trip was to reach Velbert railway station, and the rest of the accommodation and food was catered for. So at the end of my trip if you ask me have I seen the Berlin wall or Brandenburg Gate in Berlin or Frauenkirche in Munich or the Neuschwanstein Castle, I will say not really but I made memories during this trip and gathered enriching experiences 😊

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