Yesterday at CNL, we met the guys of MOT D. They had left Aybak for the last time, because the Swedish contingent rotates the coming week. We invited them to the Suomi-house and gave them each a Koskenkorva seat towel, to be used in the sauna, and a box of Sisu-sweets as going-away presents. In Aybak, they had already gotten knives and "kuksas", carved wooden drinking vessels. And, they had had a really, really nice dinner, which we found out when we arrived at the PO at about lunchtime today. There were left-overs: grilled lobster for starters, beef fillet and mushroom sauce for main course, not to mention all the side dishes. Sometime's it's easy to forget that we are in one of the poorest countries in the world.
I cleaned my room, paid the local employees their salaries two days overdue, and tried to catch up with the situation. In the evening I went to the sauna and had a shave. I had no razor in my luggage and was starting to look like a bandit. Winter is here and we have already had some snow. The mountains all around are white, of course. And it gets dark quite soon, too: the daylight is practically gone by 1730 hrs. The roads are starting to get muddy, but we are still able to get around. That is about to change by February, when the snow on the mounains starts to melt and the floods hit the valleys. That will be over by April, and everything will turn green instead of khaki. But only for a few months, until the sun has burnt everyhing dry. Right now it's difficult to imagine how ridiculously hot it was just three monts ago.
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