International Peace Day

My second day in Aybak turned out to be a busy one (so busy, that I'm actually writing this on the day after yesterday, i.e. today, although one isn't able to tell that from the blog entry date and time markings, because those can be set and even altered afterwards, so I set to date and time for this entry to be what they would have been, had I had the energy to write this entry yesterday. The blogosphere works in mysterious ways).

Representatives of ISAF were invited to join the International Peace Day celebrations in the city of Aybak. The day is supposed to celebrated on the 21. September, but as that day coincides with the ending of Ramadan and the Eid-festival, which is a three day national holiday, the Peace day reception was here on the 16. So, we launched a patrol to the centre of Aybak and parked our cars in the yard of a local high school, in the main hall of which was the venue. The CO (commanding officer) of PO Aybak, the representatives of EUPOL (The police of the European Union, a Polish fellow named S) and G9 (the CIMIC (civil - military co-operation) office of PRT MeS (Provincial Reconstrution Team Mazar-e-Sharif), a Finnish guy named J), and myself entered the hall. We got seats in the front of the hall, just behind the guest of honour, who were government officials of provincial level. What followed was an hour and a half of monotonous speeches, followed by more speeches. Fortunately I had the interpreter sitting beside me, and his telling me the main points of the speeches prevented me from falling asleep. Poems were read aloud by schoolchildren and a song was performed by a girls' choir. The event was incidentally broadcast today on local television, and I could be seen in a couple of shots, so now I can say that I've been on TV in Afghanistan. How about that.

In the schoolyard there were a couple of elderly, bearded men walking around with long canes in their hand. When we asked what they were doing, we were told that they're keeping the discipline: making sure that the kids behave themselves, make their way swiftly to class etc. Disciplinarians must be like a very practical thing to have here - and why not in Finland as well. It would give the pensioners some exercise.

Back at the PO I spent the afternoon learning about one of my main administrative duties: managing the cash flow. The local employees were in need of advance on their pay because of the coming holidays, so most signed out up to half of next month's pay in advance. I also found the time to clean my weapons, which I had not had time for since range day. Then it was time for the daily briefing, after which the CO, S and me to hurried across the street to join the guard's dinner.

It was the CO's idea to invite all the local employees of the PO to dinner. His superiors agreed with the idea, and with the help of a small allowance we hired a cook to prepare it. There is a garden across the street, next to a mosque, and the gardener let us use his kitchen to prepare the meal. We brought chilled soft drinks and bottled water. We were joined by the gardener and the mullah from the mosque, although he had to run off to administer the prayers once in a while (this close to Eid the praying continues all night). We sat and ate for more than two hours. The food tasted excellent, and what's more important, I didn't get "yalla". Yet. (The interpreter recommended that we skip the yoghurt sauce, which probably was good advice.)


Plenty of everything (my portion was actually big enough for three)


The locals drank all the soft drinks, although there were 3 can per person!

(Btw., the internet connection of the PO has used up more than 90% of it's monthly quota of megabytes. The reason for this is that one of the quys accidentally downloaded something very, very big. Consequently I might be forced to stay off-line until the 26.9., when we get a new quota. But dinny fash {Scottish: don't worry}, I'll keep on writing off-line, and upload everything in one go when it's possible.)