Three Meetings, part 2

After the easier days at CNL and the dinner party, it was straight back to the toil and drudgery of daily life at the PO for me. The security meeting began at 0900 and lasted almost two hours. When we were leaving the governor's office, we ran into the chief of prison, who was thrilled to hear that our project proposal had been approved. The prison was completely out of water now, so he insisted on meeting us today to arrange the details of the water delivery. We went to the prison at 1300, just as a shower of heavy rain, accompanied by thunder, had sent everyone in the city running for cover. The chief of prison and his deputy could barely hide their disappointment, when I presented the contract of water delivery that I had written just an hour earlier. The prison officials would never see the cash, but instead I would pay the water man according to a list that he and the chief of prison both sign for each delivery of water. They have to partner up in corruption to trick me and leave the prisoners thristy - which I'm sure they did as soon as we left the prison. As we were leaving, the chief of prison said something very typical, which half a year ago would have spoiled my mood, but not anymore, since I've grown used to it. He had just minutes earlier signed a contract which will guarantee his prison free drinking water for more than three months - and now he had the nerve to ask us for some electric fans, "because it will be summer and quite hot soon".

Directly from the prison we drove over to see the chief of NDS for some talks. Three meetings means three reports, but this time I "outsourced" one report to my 2iC (second in command) and postponed another UFN (until further notice). The reason for this was that I still had my notes from commander's conference to sort out, and that the deadline for the personal evaluation of MOT D commader was today. That I had posponed earlier.


This has nothing to do with anything today and was taken above Khulm on Friday. But it's also very typical Afghanistan.