Reality Check

We arrived at PO Aybak before lunch - or brunch, actually, as it was Friday. The trip from CNL was normal with only light traffic, as it was Friday. We met a convoy of ANA, Croatian and German troops just after the Khulm pass. Then there was a traffic accident, in which a car had driven off the road. It had happened only seconds before: there was still a cloud in the sky in the air and people were stopping their cars and gathering at the scene. We didn't stop - we have instructions not to stop at accident scenes unless we are involved ourselves - but we could see from a distance that the driver of the car had crashed half way through the windscreen and that he had lost a lot of blood already. The car's white hood and the driver's white clothes were stained red.

At the PO not much had changed. The drainage covers had been repaired and the yard and the floor one room in the mudhouse covered with gravel. The water heaters had beed changed and one case of blocked sewage had been cleared. I began with vacuuming and wiping the dust in my quarters. There was a lot of dust, just a little less than there was when I first arrived, so I suppose my predecessor had cleaned the room before he left, after all. Then I put a picture of A and V on my wall and a Fingerpori comic strip on the door to the sauna. Then we talked with the CO for a while about what had happened during the past two weeks. After the usual evening brief I added a bunch of reciepts to the PO's cash register and counted the total sum. It was 179 dollars short. I was very angry about the deficit and felt like I should never have left to leave - after all, the 15000 dollar cash is my personal responsibility. Well, I'll do a recount tomorrow and try to get it all to sum up. It's Swedish taxpayers' money. Pehaps it's supposed to spontaneously disappear.

The atmosphere at the PO seems less relaxed and energetic than two weeks ago. It's too early to say anything definite about the reason for this, but I have some ideas. MOT D is on leave, which is a big gap to fill. There were no guests at the PO today, which really is exceptional. The weather is really getting colder. Today I also once again realised that the CO's style of leadership differs considerably from that of myself.