In March we hosted 14 students from a university in Melbourne for a half-day at the kebun. Their professor had emailed us six weeks earlier, asking whether we could fit a research-and-experience visit into one afternoon.
We could.
How we structured the day
- A 30-minute walk through the kampung, ending at the kebun.
- A 45-minute hands-on slot — the group split into ecoprint and composting.
- A long lunch cooked from the kebun's harvest.
- A 30-minute Q&A in the pendopo.
What surprised us
They asked the best questions during lunch, not the formal Q&A.
Around the long table, conversation moved between water rights, the politics of the riverbank, and what they each cooked back home. By the end the difference between "guest" and "neighbour" felt smaller than we expected.
What stayed with the group
Two weeks later we got a thank-you package in the mail — a hand-drawn map of the kebun made by one of the students, plus a note from the cohort. It hangs in the pendopo now, just above the seed jars.