Mareike Aufderheide and Clemens Voigts

From now on, the path ran parallel and is easier to tell. From the very first week, life in Witzenhausen was as social, friendly and stimulating as many people reading this text probably remember it. At the beginning of my studies, this was the main focus and statistics, physics and inorganic chemistry were more of a means to an end. But the more the subjects had to do with actual agriculture and the more interlinked the relationships became, the more interested we became in our studies and our choice of subjects showed that the topics of the tropics and subtropics were the focus for both of us. A trip to South Africa, where we worked on the big project with a group of four other students, was very formative for us during our studies. For me, Mareike, the subsequent trip to Namibia with the whole group was the first time I got to know this country. For the Bachelor's thesis at DITSL, the two of us set off for Kenya in September 2010, where we spent ten weeks in three locations interviewing pastoralists and employed shepherds and getting to know their attitudes to their work. This time was also really formative for us. Life in pastoral villages, as a couple, without a cell phone network, running water, with heat and dust, with a completely new culture and people who welcomed us very kindly and described and explained many things to us that we could not have imagined.

We didn't quite live up to the Witzenhausen cliché "you have a dog after the third semester and a child after the fifth semester". The dog came after the fifth semester and the child after the Bachelor's degree. So we were still able to experience family-friendly studying in Witzenhausen. First I started my Master's degree (SIA) and Clemens began his extra-occupational training to become a Waldorf teacher in Kassel. Later, Clemens also did his Master's (Ecological Agriculture). During the whole time we worked as HiWis at DITSL - again the connection to the tropics and subtropics.

After my Master's degree, I started working for CERES in the field of organic certification. First as an evaluator, as a desk officer, and later also as an inspector for various standards.

After the birth of our second child, however, life pulled us away from Witzenhausen. It was really hard to say goodbye to many very dear people and the place we had grown to love. But the opportunity to join the Krumhuk farming community in Namibia, to apply and expand what we had learned and to make a contribution to organic farming in a country like Namibia, where it is still largely a foreign concept, drew us away.

Thus began a new phase in our lives. Clemens became fully involved in farming. He looks after the herd of cattle, which, unlike almost all commercial cattle farmers, is herded on our farm. He is also responsible for marketing and educational projects on the farm. After the upcoming generational change, he will take over the management with three colleagues from the beginning of 2021. And I can also give free rein to my love of animal husbandry here. I look after a flock of chickens, have integrated pigs into the vegetable garden and coordinate the vegetable cultivation. I have continued to work as an evaluator for CERES and have repeatedly carried out organic inspections in South Africa and Namibia. I also joined the board of the Namibian Organic Association (NOA). In Namibia, the organic farming movement is still very much in its infancy. But it's great for both of us to be working in a place where we can really use our backgrounds to help people think in new directions. By the time this text is printed, I will have taken over the project management for a BMZ project to strengthen organic farming in communal and commercial areas. So, life is constantly changing. We now live with our three children on the Krumhuk farm, actively practicing organic farming and trying to contribute our knowledge and skills here in the country.

On our infrequent but regular trips to Germany, we never miss a visit to Witzenhausen, our dear friends, the DITSL and the university!