Our plan was a long nice lazy summer in The Netherlands. We succeeded partly. I got a request again to join the most favourite embassy of them all (see post of 24 January) for a short time. I was not too excited about it, but there are some good reasons to do this. The person that is going to Kabul could only start in October for health reasons, it's the same guy that helped me a lot the first year in 'the service' in Kigali. So by making everything in order I kind of repay the favour. Secondly it is not a bad thing if I'm asked twice for the same job, this means I did it well, hopefully this gives some brownie points.
I came to a compromise with my boss and went 'only' two weeks and shortened my holidays a bit, as not to stay too long away.
This time it was nice weather, a bit hot in the full sun, but I prefer the 30+ celcius with airco above the minus 5 it was last time (with bad heating).
Anyway same boring routine, but some outings.
First Friday of the the 'bazar' at UN headquarters to buy a carpet; success.
During the week I had a short introduction to a car. We have mostly armoured Toyota Land cruiser, but also some armoured Mercedes'. There are three grenades, one for a lot of smoke, one for a loud bang, at one to set the car on fire in case you need to leave it behind, nice! I was allowed to test how it drives for 100 meters, even though they weigh 4 tons they drive like a normal car thanks to the turbo V8 engines.
The second weekend on the Saturday I had the privilege to join the security guy on the shooting range. Of course I have to deny publicly that I enjoyed it, however....
We will not mention the fact that when asked at 18 I stated not wanting to join the army. (We still had obligatory service back then, yes I'm old)
Yes, I did shoot the target. With this machine it's not so hard. (No, I didn't shoot any colleagues or Afghan people)
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