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The themes of this Retreat were: livelihood, ecology and culture. So, I will start sharing some information about this city based on our visits and lectures. Our journey to Orissa began in Singapore Airport where all the participants met, except two participants – Mr.Akira Uchimura and Dr.Gustavo Kishimoto – that had some serious problems to arrive. Together, we took a flight to Delhi and from Delhi to Bhubaneshwar. We had more than 4 hours waiting in Delhi till the connection flight to Bhubaneshwar, but we had so many queues and bureaucracy to pass through and waiting time to get from one terminal to another that 4 hours passed by very quickly. Good thing is that we had plenty of time to get to know each other. We arrived at Bhubaneshwar airport and we took a taxi from the airport to Toshali Sands Resort where the Retreat was held, in Puri. It took approximately 1 hour to get there. I must say it was a real adventure. The Indians there have a very peculiar way to drive. They drive not in the left, not in the right side, but in the very middle of the road. In many occasions we were just about to collide with the cars coming from the opposite direction. Another interesting thing is that they just keep the hand in the horn. They use the horn so many times and I guess they like to make a lot of noise!!! The traffic is very chaotic, with no signs or traffic lights at all.

All the way from the airport to the hotel, we saw many cows and buffalos along the road. They are also part of the traffic. Actually, I was told that the cow is a sacred animal in India and inhabits 33 Gods. They are not allowed to eat the meat of the cow, but they are allowed to take the milk and to use the excrements as fertilizer and fuel. They use the leather too, after the cow is dead. The guide told us that they bury the cow’s body and in ancient times, there was a special person to do all the burying ritual. The city that this Retreat was held – Puri – is located (according to the taxi driver) approximately 60km from Bhubaneshwar, the capital city of Orissa state. Puri is one of the oldest cities in the eastern part of the country and it is considered to be a holy place of pilgrimage in India. It is situated on the coast of Bengal Bay and has a beautiful sea beach with its unique and fantastic views of sunsets and sunrises. The region of Orissa has also a great biodiversity of fauna and flora. It is known for its wildlife Sanctuaries of elephants, tigers and other wild animals. The Largest Lion Safari in India is located in Bhubaneshwar and is the only place of White Tiger Safari in the world. The Bengal bay cost is also known for its biodiversity and is one of the largest nesting places of a turtle species.

We also visited the Chilika Lake, the brackish lake that is known to be the second largest lagoon in the world. Chilika is the habitat of many fish species, thousands of migratory birds and is also famous to be the living place of a dolphin species. Although a lot of effort has been made to keep the clean environment to preserve this lake, some parts of the shore are very dirty with garbage and rubbish everywhere.

Orissa is also famous for its unique culture.

We had the chance to appreciate the typical Indian dance from this region. The Odissi dance expresses a story through a very peculiar body movements and facial expressions. Among other beautiful dances, we had the chance to see one that tells a classic story of Radha & Krishna. This story was about the love adventure of Radha with another woman while Krishna was home waiting for his return.
Another traditional dance from Orissa is performed by kids. With a flexible body movements they twist and dance according to the music in a very gracious  way.

One of our amazing visits was to the Konark Temple. This temple known as the Sun Temple was built in the 13^th century and the entire complex was designed in the form of a chariot with 7 horses, four in the right and three in the left. All the walls of this temple are surrounded by a remarkable stone work of erotic women and human figures that represents the Kama Sutra positions.

The region of Orissa has indeed an abundant nature and possesses a unique traditional culture. In recent years, due to its abundant natural resources, this region has been receiving many investments. Minerals like bauxite, iron, chromite and also coal have been attracting attention of the industries. However, since most of the population survives from the earnings of traditional agriculture, there are many concerns about the destruction of their natural environment. To get to know better about the livelihood in this region, we were divided into groups that visited different artisan villages. I was part of the group that visited a town called Pipli. This town is famous for the colorful appliqué handicrafts and most part of the community is engaged in its confection. We visited an organization called Darabar Sahitya Sansad that promotes livelihood for poor women. They support the women to work in handicrafts and provide financial aid for housing and life insurance. Since 1999, they also support the villagers when natural disasters, common to this region such as floods and cyclones occur.

Family house in Pipli – 8 people lives there.

The living conditions of the population in this region are miserable. They live below the poverty line and suffer the same problems from developing countries, except in a worse conditions.

This article was a short description of Orissa according to the themes of this Retreat – culture, livelihood, ecology. I hope you could have an idea about this state and I will post another article soon.

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I remember that when I first came to Japan from Peru, I took the longest trip of my life (24 hours, with just 1 transfer in Los Angeles). Considering that the distance between Japan and India is the third part of trip from Peru, I didn’t worry too much about this journey. Or should I say “adventure”?

From the International Airport of Narita you can find different ways to reach India. As we should meet the other participants in Singapore, my friend Akira booked 2 Singapore Airlines’ tickets. The plan was to depart on February 7th from Narita at 11:30, meet everybody in Singapore, opt for a city tour during the 6 hours transfer, and take the plane to Delhi. Arriving in Delhi, we all should shift to a local airline to Bhubaneswar, and finally 2 hours by bus until the Toshali Resort.

So according to that schedule, I took the Narita Express from Shinjuku station for Narita International Airport. It stopped at Tokyo Station, where Akira caught my train. Since then we would travel together.

We reached Narita on schedule. Made the check-in and boarded on time. The engines started and the plane headed for the departing line (11:45), and then our adventure began. The aircraft braked and the captain told us that the Japanese engineers found sort of problem in the secondary brakes, and requested our patience to them to fix it.

After watching almost 2 movies in this new Airbus 480, the captain announced that unfortunately the problem would take more time so we returned to base, disembarked, and received 2000 yens for lunch. The cabin attendants requested us to return in an hour.

We ate sushi packs and returned by 16:00, however, we should wait until 18:00 to board and depart with 7 hours of delay.

We actually slept all the way until Singapore. After landing at local 23:00 (Tokyo time), we went to the transfer counter, because we lost our flight to Delhi. After 2 hours, we refused a night in Singapore Crown Hotel for the fastest and easiest connection. Thanks to the help of Miss Mary Kanniga (BABA Retreat Secretariat), we could find a flight to Delhi departing at 03:00. The problem was that we would only have 90min to try to catch our scheduled flight from Delhi to Bhubaneswar. If not, the counter officer reserved us in another local airline.  So, we just look for something to eat, and found this spectacular soup restaurant.

With that 90min-rushed-tranfer, we ran to pick up our luggage. Imagine our surprise, when we waited until the last luggage and couldn’t find ours. We were running out of time and looked for the officer in charge. This kind officer did all the arrangements so quickly, that we had 20min to take the domestic flight. She got us a taxi that covered a 30min-distance in 7min. And after running to the final counter, they couldn’t find our flight tickets and again we lost our flight.

How fortunately was to have Akira’s mobile with international roaming. Again, Mary suggested us to buy new tickets. With 6 hours until the next flight and no luggage, we decided to go to the nearest “supermarket”. Akira wanted to ride a tricycle-motor-taxi. So we went to this “supermarket” to buy some underwear, pants, and t-shirts. In some moment, we started to doubt the good intentions of the driver, because he started to do too many turns and passed “pretty ugly” places. Especially, one turn leaded us to a “no-end road”. It was surrounded by tons of garbage and not nice gazes. We did get scared to be stolen or about even worse things. Actually, that route was a shortcut. After 15 minutes, we arrived to a ghetto’s market.

We just tried not to seem surprised or afraid, and started to walk and look for our needs. We took around 2 hours with the shopping. Then we were quite hungry and asked to a smiling tricycle-driver to take us to a very traditional restaurant with delicious Indian food.

After our first decent meal since our departure in Japan, our friendly taxi-driver took us back to the Indira Gandhi Airport. Again our flight delayed for over an hour.

At last, but not the end of this story, we arrived in Bhubaneswar, checked out and find our transportation waiting for us. The driver told us that the ride to the Toshali Sands Resort (Puri, Bhubaneswar) would take around 2 hrs. So we tried to relax and have some sleep, but 1hr 10min later the taxi stopped because a 1km-traffic-jam due to a car accident.

Finally, after 30min we could restart the way to the hotel. Seiji was waiting for us at the main entrance, as well as, Mary and Margaret. We had some salad, chicken and rice for dinner, and a wonderful king-size bed (total trip = 50hrs).

After our 50-hour- Adventure from Narita (Japan) to Puri (India), Akira and I could rest in our designed cottages 6016 and 6015 at Toshali Sands Resort. Our humble rooms had a small living with TV plasma, air conditioned and fan, with its own restroom (with TV plasma and fan, but no toilet paper). The bedrooms had a king-size-bed and the same electronic devices.

We woke up at 06:30 to meet everybody, as we missed the briefing session the day before. During our long wait between Delhi and Bhubaneswar, we decided to memorize all the BaBA’s participants’ names, countries (Bangladesh, China, Philippines, India, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam), and their fields of specialty. So when we arrived at the dining room, we greeted everyone in their own language: “Namaskar, Marjjuk and Biju“; “Non ho, Weigang, Lingling and Zheng”; “Kumustá, Menandro, Wilfredo and Rosalie”; “Menyapa, Andi and Herry”; “Salam, Fitri, Ilham, Reny, Rina, and Yeni“; “Konnichiwa, Hisako”; “Chào bạn, Anh and Ben“; “Bom dia, Naomi and Seiji“. It was a quite funny introduction.

After breakfast, the speeches started:

“BABA, Asian Dialogue Society and Orissa” by Mr. Amitav Acharya (Deputy Director and Head of Research at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies of Singapore)

“Session on Leadership” by Mr. Tathagat Satpathy (Indian Parliament Member).

Mr Satpathy is a notable Indian Parliament Member, whose wife Mrs. Adyasha Satpathy (past-model and actress, local newspaper Dharitri editor) joined us at the coffee break.

After lunch, we had the following lectures:

“Orissa Ecology” by Mr. Saruj Kumar Patnaik (Retired Chief Wildlife Warden Orissa).

“The Nippon Foundation and its Affiliates” by Mr. Shuichi Ohno (Executive Director of The Nippon Foundation, TNF).

During Mr Ono’s lecture, he pointed out the “7 Basic Action Policies” of TNF:

1. Deal with issues in depth and in detail in accordance with priorities rather than trying to tackle all issues comprehensively.
2. Attempt to create new projects and ideas without being bound by precedents.
3. Act promptly without being afraid of failure.
4. Be open and transparent to society.
5. Never forget to evaluate yourself and educate yourself constantly.
6. Discover signs of new changes and cope with them.
7. Develop good human networks, worldwide.

Afterwards, Aruna Mohanty’s traditional school of Odissi Dance brightened the evening.

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