Rain!

Today it rained almost the whole day! Sometimes there were only a few drops in the air, but in the evening it turned to proper rain. Not too strong, but rain nevertheless. It felt really strange, because it hasn't rained at all since I arrived here.

The day was very, very busy. I had four meetings and wrote three reports. Two of them were about normal intelligence questions, but one was quite strange. The mullah from the mosque across the street came to the gate and wanted us to pay him "power tax" for hearing the daily prayers from the mosque's sound system. It uses electricity, and all who hear it must contribute to the cost. He told me that the people living in the PO compound haven't paid the power tax in three years, so we owe him one hundred U.S. dollars. One of the loudspeakers and the power amplifier were malfunctioning, so he wondered if we could help him to get new ones for the mosque. I promised him nothing, but said that I would write a report to PRT asking for their advice (in the report I also suggested a solution: the muslims who live in our compound, i.e. the guards and IP's, pay the tax).

Sure. Yes, we'll buy him an even stronger amplifier and bigger loudspeakers, because we enjoy so much listening to the prayers five times a day, especially the one at about four in the morning. Not to mention the propaganda preaching that goes on for more than an hour every Friday. NOT!