I’m gypsy, no hippie!
10 Dec 2013 | Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India
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For those who didn't follow, I was in Auroville back in April and as I was only ten days there, I decided that it would be worth exploring and understanding more. Being in Sri Lanka, which is only 40km from India (even if no boat to cross), I could just do that now. So there I go, I contact the Auroville Bamboo Research Centre which I had found most interesting on my last visit and agree for a two months voluntary work.
But unlike most -real- volunteering places, Auroville is organised in such a way (the Indian crazy administration applied by hippies, ah!) that you don't get anything much when volunteering there. If you do more than two months (which happens I could qualify for), you get discount for food (which basically brings it back to Indian price), and some of the accommodations.
Auroville itself is definitely a strange place, it has a bit of Indian flavour thanks to the Indian people, local or passers-by, but it definitely is a white people's place. It has all of their problems: the rigidity, the organisation issues, some kind-of competition in between the people (communities almost never work together), the selfishness, the complains... And the worst is the hypocrisy, people pretending they want to leave at peace with each other and not being capable to be at peace with themselves, pretending they are not materialistic and running after money and possessions, talking about sharing and making sure no one will get a bit of what they have...
Fortunately there are also good sides like a certain openness, an ecological vision, creativity... And of course not everyone is like that, there are still plenty of interesting people around, trying to work for a better world, and even fighting against all of these flaws (very brave, as the machine looks much gripped). Thanks to them, Auroville is worth visiting and very interesting place!
So, I most enjoy my time there, riding my cycle around, chilling, partying sometime, making fires, juggling, doing sport and crafts...
The work at the bamboo centre is very interesting to me: I have at disposal a full workshop with all the tools I could dream of, and all the leeway I want to try, experiment, create anything out of bamboos. The place is lead by Baloo, a stressed and stressful Tamil from the area, who also leads Mohanam school, an experimental school in the village nearby. There is also Nick, an Englishman who left the life of a CEO six years ago and do management stuff here. And Walter, a Belgian, who was in Auroville at the very beginning of its creation and after having left, decided to come back a year ago now that he is retired. He is a professional woodworker and teaches me a lot. And of course all the local workers and other volunteers which are very nice and inspiring.
The life there is punctuated by volunteers, students, interns and other visitors, coming for an hour, a day, a week, a month. It is interesting to meet all these people, explain them about bamboo and its particularities (I become good at that ;). Also I learn construction and design with bamboo, I create a few new stuffs: juggling clubs using the lathe (my favourite), a solar oven which never worked as it was broken before the sun would come out, a bamboo hammock which costed me a lot of sweat and blood, a bamboo clock which is now produced and sold, some bamboo whistles...
At the end I'm very happy to leave. It's the longest time I have been staying at one place in the last two years, so feet are getting very itchy. And I need to get away from that enclave of western world, and to be in real India. But still I met tons of people here that I will miss a lot, that I hope to cross on my way, would it be in India or elsewhere. Some say I will be back sometime maybe. Maybe.