The team of American students with workers at the tea garden. Picture by Subhas Chandra Bose

Hasimara, Oct. 5: ?This is a total cultural immersion for us besides being exposed to the world outside. This is an opportunity to get to know the people here ? what is familiar to them and what they consider to be their own,? said Chad Alborn of Drew University busy plucking tealeaves at the Satali estate.

Plucking two-leaves-and-a-bud, learning to speak the local language and staying with the garden workers in their labour lines at the Satali tea estate is no mean task for a band of 11 American college students. But, for the likes of Chad Alborn and his friends Hannah Trachtman and David Sheldon, the experience is part of their learning process back at either Harvard or Drew University.

The 11-member group arrived here last Monday after spending a few days at a village in Darjeeling. The students have chosen to stay with seven labourer-families in order to get an insight into life in a tea garden.

The team is accompanied by four instructors ? Suren Thami, Sweta Gurung, Emily Braucher and Courtney Zenner. It will leave India on December 7 and head for Nepal, Tibet and Thailand.

The 13-week programme ? organised by a portal ? will enable the team to visit places, which are off the beaten tracks, live with people they had never thought they would ever meet. The portal, Where There Be Dragons, offers students, school groups, adults as well as professional educators learning experiences with tours and home-stays anywhere in the world. It organises such tours even to remote villages in Bolivia.

Yesterday, workers of the garden accorded the students a rousing welcome. Former PWD minister of state, Dasarath Tirkey, himself a tea garden resident, and a garden manager, Kamaljit Singh, were present at the programme.

The day?s programme included a ?crash course? of Nepali and then a ?rural life observation? tour. When the correspondent walked up to the group, all of them greeted him with folded hands and a chorus namaste.

Explaining why she was eager to come to India, Hannah, a student of social sciences at Harvard, said: ?I want to learn the traditions and cultures of your country. During a holiday break, we take this opportunity to go out of our own country and learn more through travel.?

All the students, however, agreed that it was ?very difficult to get a complete, generalised picture of India?. According to them, Indians are very strong-willed. ?Religion and spirituality seem to play a very important role in the people?s lives, no matter what faith they belonged to,? one of them said.

Dahari Minj, one of the workers plucking leaves alongside the raincoat-clad group, said she felt proud that these students have chosen to stay in the garden.

?That they have decided to stay with us and eat what we are cooking for them gives us a great sense of accomplishment. After all, they come from the world?s richest country,? she said.

Vargese Kachua, another worker, said such activities in the garden like, the advent of people from far-away lands, also had an effect on residents of the area. ?These programmes also help us broaden our views. Friendly interaction without any feeling of class-discrimination is very refreshing for us,? he said.

The students will leave for Kathmandu tomorrow.