DOTCOM Caucasus Mojo: Azerbaijan - Day #2 in Baku

We DOTCOM’ers thought Day #1 in Azerbaijan was epic.

Then came Day #2.

We’ve provided you with a short slideshow of the highlights of the past few days as seen on foot and from our blue bus.



Highlights from today: a visit to the ministry of education; a provocative conversation with Azerbaijani student journalists; a U.S.A.I.D.-sponsored online conversation with students from nine other countries about President Barack Obama’s “Cairo Address” and youth leadership; and a visit to Baku’s only Catholic church and a Jewish synagogue as Passover gets underway.

And yes, we did manage to squeeze in lunch at a little Azerbaijani café in between events.

Breathe, DOTCOM ‘ers, breathe.

We walked all around the city of Baku again today, parts of which (like every other city I’ve ever seen) are stunningly beautiful and well-kept, and other parts in need of some TLC and a few infrastructural improvements.

The highlight for me, though, was sitting with members of Samir’s host family in their dacha’s kitchen tonight, eating, drinking, telling stories, and singing songs.

Intercultural-bonding, with plenty of funny communication gaffes and laughs along the way.

“If you smile at me, I will understand,” sang CSN in “Wooden Ships,” “because that is something everyone everywhere does in the same language.”

Indeed.

We’re banking on this, and the generosity and good will of our Azerbaijani friends, as we seek to understand this part of the world a bit better, and prepare for our International “Social Media For Social Change” conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, next week.