The last two weeks I have been spending my time creating a workshop for volunteers. On top of that I had a random moment in the Handi festival.

Like I said, I was part of a team to coordinate a workshop for volunteers. The workshop was based off research that I relayed to the founder. Then we had other NGOs and volunteer managers who were interested in volunteer management discuss what their organizations were doing with volunteers. I even got to sit on a panel and answer some questions. The whole workshop was a success and I feel that people came away from the workshop with fresh ideas of how to strengthen their programs for volunteers.

Since that was my last project, I got to rest for my last week at my host organization. Then I would head to Delhi and Agra for a small vacation. Then make my way to Mumbai and fly off to America.

The last week of my internship consisted of me resting and attending the Handi festival. The resting was nice because I got to reevaluate what I had done for the organization and look back on my journal entries. While reading through these entries I saw generalizations and assumptions that I had in the beginning, but as weeks passed the generalizations became nothing to me. I had grown and I realized that these were only half truths and not the whole truth.

Then for Handi festival, the celebration was amazing and exciting. The celebration  is about Lord Krishna breaking an urn of milk and butter to give to the people. So the celebration goes as follows. There are big crowds, dance parties, loud music, and did I mention teams making human pyramids 15-20 feet high to grab the urn that Lord Krishna broke to give to the people.

The teams that form these human pyramids train for months for this event because if you win you getting bragging rights and money. As they are forming these pyramids the urn is hoisted on a rope that up in the air.

On a side note, as I was taking pictures of this event I was coerced to come to the dias and speak to the thousands of people who came to the event. I was pretty much awestruck from what was happening. They even had the honoured guest–her name was Akshaya Gurav who is a Marathi actress–give me a coconut for being there. The whole entire event was crazy, fun, and amazing.

My supervisor speaking at the workshop

The founder on the left

A presenter

Handi Festival

Celebrity that gave me the coconut.