On a lazy afternoon as I was idly rummaging through some papers at my office, a long distance phone call woke me up! That was UNIDO, Vienna calling, trying to ascertain whether I was the same person who had authored a technical article published three months back in an industry journal. As I answered in the affirmative, next came the bombshell, whether I was interested in making a presentation on the same theme with all expenses paid by UNIDO in a conference in Caracas, Venezuela. That was too much to fathom and I could somehow mutter, ‘Oh! Yeah, I could give it a try’. My first trip abroad and that too to Caracas, almost straight from the school geography lessons! All my good friends cautioned me about Latin America, the land of drug cartels and gang
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