Impressions of the Third World Water Forum

Tuesday 18^th of March

It was a very early rise this morning. Third World Water Forum has its third day and today is the day of Youth World Water Forum (YWWF). Since we still have to prepare for our own session, we start at the conference centre at 8 o’clock, so that we will be in time for YWWF.

YWWF is an organization of students and young professionals who are interested in water. They started almost 2 years ago and have many young and fresh ideas for addressing the global water problems. At the age of 30 they have to leave the organization, so we had a meeting to get to know each other better. Maybe there can be nice exchanges between JCI and YWWF. Next Saturday we will do our presentation about “Translating awareness into concrete action” especially for them.

During lunchtime we attended a tea ceremony. It was amazing to learn how much effort can be put in making a cup of tea. The teacher explained that if you do the ceremony properly, it could help you to reach harmony. Also he told that the ceremony is meant to honour the tea and the host who offers you the ceremony. When served the tea was very hot, very green and very thick. It had however a good taste – if you like spinach water and your stomach can stand it. If you concentrated hard enough in the midst of a crowd of 5.000 congress-participants you could understand that a tea ceremony can be very relaxing. However, squeezing such a ceremony in a 15 minutes session it is not relaxed.

At the afternoon session of YWWF we met a Jaycee from Nepal and of course we took as picture together. It is great to see that Jaycees from different countries are participating in such a forum. In the evening we had to go to Osaka for a briefing with the session leader and supporters. We were surprised by their questions and eye for detail. Simultaneously, they complimented us for being well prepared. We returned from Osaka around 22.00 hours and had sushi and miso soup diner. We were starving and hardly had energy enough to make it to the restaurant.

Time for a good meal

We have to get up early tomorrow, but have so much to do we stay up till after 02.00 hours (again) before we unroll the Japanese style beds.