Visitors Wednesday

The ANA colonel and OCCP chairman that I mentioned in my blog entry of yesterday, got a present from us today. I got K to print a colour copy of one of the pictures that we took yesterday, put it in an IKEA frame (that we have ready here for just such purposes), and hand it over to him in the OCCP meeting this morning. It's too bad that I wasn't there to see his reaction, because K told us that he was very, very pleased to get a framed picture of himself to put on the wall. Now that's what I call PR.

I stayed at the safe house to receive two delegations of representatives from two different GIRoA (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) organisations: The Directorate of Women's Affairs Samangan Office, and the Balkh University Department of Education. We sat down and had tea and blueberry cupcakes. We exchanged politenesses for about half an hour. The university fellows really made a good effort to convince me that the point of their visit was just getting to know me and to establish a good relationship between the PRT and Balkh University. But their visit was no courtesy call, as it soon turned out (they never are): I patiently sat and listened to their requests at least half an hour more. They wanted a lot of things, everything from printer cartridges and multimedia projectors to a car for transporting lecturers and one kilometre of road to the new faculty building. The DOWA women's requests were more modest: 300-500 litres of diesel fuel, hygiene kits, children's winter clothes. I told them that I would forward their requests to the appropriet people.

In the afternoon the OCCP top brass paid us a surprise visit. They were very upset about some operational matters that are beyond the limits of this blog, but soon calmed down when we sat down with some chilled soft drinks and cashew nuts. We explained the situation and emphasised that we would work with them, not let them down and earn their trust. When they left, O-P gave them a bunch of the latest issue of the local propaganda newspaper, ISAF news, which was much appreciated.


OCCP and ANA at a surprise visit to the PO

But that was not all the visitors of the day: Both the Finnish and the Swedish Development Advisors came over. They will go to some meetings. And another platoon of U.S. Army dropped by, led by my old friend W. Always a pleasure to have the "yanks" (as we affectionately call them) here. I also washed some laundry and should have vacuumed my room, but didn't. So it was a quite normal day.