Week 10
Wow, It is already August and ten weeks (just a little over) has come and gone very quickly! It is almost hard to believe that I’ve been in the country for over seventy days now. No longer am I struggling to figure out how to do things, where to go, or how to find basic items like groceries. Now it almost feels like I belong here the way I know my way around the city (minus the obvious fact that I’m clearly a non-native English speaking foreigner!). This week I was able to take advantage of a series of events that were occurring down on Park Boulevard. I am still unsure of what the events were actually for, but a number of bands were playing on temporary stages and there were tons of vendors and performers all up and down the street. Still, it was hard to stay out for too long as the heat has started to become worse. Not long ago, the temperature reached 108 F!
Work was quite fun this week. With many people coming from outside of the city, there was plenty of entertaining to do among the vast amount of paper work. The week culminated with our Year-5 Work Planning Session at the Jumeirah Bilgah Beach Hotel in Baku. The facilities were phenomenal! It was a gorgeous venue to hold the conference. A lot of great work got done and we finished a lot of the loose ends that we needed to tie up. We were able to entertain our out of town employees, partners, and ministry guests quite well thanks to the wonderful set-up of the Jumeriah. After the meetings conclusion, many employees, myself included, remained at the hotel to enjoy the beach and the resort’s facilities.