A group of youngsters from Germany is here to take home a slice of Vijayawada.
The 10-member team is on a visit to the city as part of a cultural exchange programme sponsored by the the Humanist Freethinker Association, Havelland, Germany. The Atheist Centre, Vijayawada, is playing host, keeping the visitors engaged in a series of activities like workshops, community service projects, team-building exercises and meeting with community leaders.
Full of energy and ideas, the young volunteers have brought with them a wealth of volunteering skills, enthusiasm and a fresh perspective to inspire the local community. There is readiness in their attitude, eagerness to dig deep, discover, explore and experiment with a new level of sensitivity.
“The climate, food and lifestyle here are different,” says Volker Mueller, the team leader and president of Freethinkers’ Association, Germany.
Assisted by Catherine, Dr. Mueller is offering the youngsters the possibility to participate in programmes designed to facilitate an exchange among people of the two nations to promote peace, inter-cultural understanding and cross-cultural learning.
Sharing their experiences, the members say a four-day workshop they attended was a perfect blend of fun and learning. They interacted with 30-odd students from local schools. Besides sharing thoughts on educational aspects like sources of energy, they debated situations where one needs social change.
For most of them, it is their first visit to India. Talking to them, one realises that falling in love with a place far from home, in different circumstances, doesn’t take too long.
“I love the food here. I’ll miss it when I go back to Germany,” says Michaela Marszalkowski, who runs a book shop back home.
Traffic anarchy on Indian roads amuses Luisa Kahne while Leonie, a vegan, is delighted to discover that bananas here taste better than Germany.
Laurencia Florentine Dieck, the youngest of all, is delighted to step out of her small world in Germany and travel all the way to India. Daniel Bank is happy that his visit to India has helped him improve his English, while Marco Jura has discovered that people here laugh a lot!‘Vast’ crowds on streets and local centres surprise Paul Speckan, while his friend Georg Drechsler can’t stop grinning at the thought that they have arrived at a brand new capital.
