Most of Nepal’s rural villages still utilise the same forms of cultivation that have been used for centuries. The agriculture and rural work volunteering programme in Nepal entails genuine co-existence, adaptation, disconnection and contact with nature.
Volunteers will often live with a local Nepali family whose life revolves around agriculture. The volunteer must know that these families like to enjoy the peace and quite of their local surroundings. Depending on the time of year, the volunteer will work by ploughing the land with buffalos (a very common animal in Nepal, used to harvest crops and also slaughtered for its meat) and planting and harvesting rice and corn. However, the volunteer’s day-to-day life will involve them getting up early to milk cows, undertaking maintenance and field work tasks, helping the women around the house. In their free time, the volunteers will enjoy drinking tea with locals and meeting their families.
It’s important for the volunteer to understand that the local lifestyle is very relaxed, and not to have expectations of a fast-paced working day. Field work is often hard, but these communities have barely changed in the last 100 years. As such, volunteering programmes in rural parts of Nepal have a different rhythm.
* Accommodation: the volunteer will stay in the house of a rural family.
* Destination: rural areas, generally in the Chitwan area.
