Sophia

Right in the middle of a completely unfamiliar world

Hello everyone,

my name is Sophia, I’m 19 years old and I live in Floh-Seligenthal, a small town in beautiful Thuringia, right in the heart of Germany.

In my short life so far, I’ve seen a lot of the world. I’ve travelled to various countries, spending a week or two there and enjoying a break from school. However, I’ve never really learnt anything about a country’s culture or found out how people outside of Germany live and what values they hold. I’ve never experienced any of that in such a short amount of time, which I think is a real shame.

So I asked myself how I could really get to know a foreign country properly, with all its facets and sides. The ÖFP provided the answer: on 2 September 2018, I will begin my great adventure in Satchiyapuram, Tamil Nadu, India. For ten months, I will be travelling to this diverse and completely different country, which lies over 8,000 kilometres away on the other side of the globe. But what will I actually be doing there?

I will be working at a facility for children with disabilities in southern India, looking after them in and out of school and helping out wherever needed.

I hope that during these 10 months I will gain a better understanding of the local culture and the world as a whole. I also hope to learn about other religions, particularly Christianity, in a foreign country and to discover new sides to myself. I want to test my personal limits and perhaps even overcome them.

In this blog, I will report on the impressions and experiences I gather in India and whether my expectations are met, or if everything turns out to be quite different from what I had previously thought.

Enjoy reading!