VSSV

I’ll pick up right where I left off in the last post, because my trip is literally planned out so that I end YFS at 11:59 p.m. on July 20 and go into VSSV mode at 12:00 a.m. July 21. After some frantic packing we left to catch our bus to Hubli at 1:30 a.m. The bus decides to come an hour late and we finally left at 2:30 a.m. Thankfully Shrish Dada was with us or I don’t even know what Rhucha and I would have done at that late hour roaming around Swargate.

I fell asleep right away after getting on that bus so I could try and make up for the lack of sleep I’ve had for the past week. As we neared Hubli, there was another delay on our way to VSSV. There was a major accident on the road and we waited an hour in the middle of the road. But then our amazing host family who we had never met drove 30 kilometers, picked us up, fed us lots of yummy food from Karnataka, and let us sleep until we had to leave for the varg.

After all this we made it to VSSV expecting a campsite like we have back in the States. But instead we were welcomed into a huge marriage hall with music, flowers, and lots of smiles. I immediately felt like I was at home. The next 15 days were very exhausting but I learned so much. The coolest part was definitely meeting so many people from different countries. IT was interesting to learn about what life is like in 7 other countries (UK, Kenya, Trinidad, Mauritius, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and India) and how they blend in their Hindu traditions with the country they live in.

The varg ended the morning of August 6 and everyone packed up their stuff and headed their separate ways. There were a couple of us with bus tickets in the night so we slowly watched the hall become empty as we said goodbye to our new friends. By the afternoon it just started to get really sad being in that empty place so we walked out to the closest place with shops. Our eating adventures began with veg puffs and Limca. But then I went on to accomplish one of my goals for this trip: eating pani puri from a roadside vendor. After a lot of hesitation and anxiety we each ate 2 pani puris. Probably one of the riskiest things I’ve done this summer, but also one of the most fun memories. Our eating frenzy ended with the yummiest paan I’ve had (probably because it was also from a roadside stall). After all this we caught our bus in the night which came an hour late of course and arrived 1.5 hours late in Pune.

I just barely made it through the rest of the day with the weird incomplete sleep I got on the bus. In the afternoon we headed to our last visit to the Sewa Sahayog office and were reunited with our fellow YFS interns from Bangalore! It was so great to see the after such a long time and hear about all their stories from this summer. After our project presentation s in the evening, YFS 2012 officially ended :(