On the Frequency of Vacations

Everyone here is given five trips out per year, for a total of up to 65 days.  (If you don't "make your 300," you are obligated to stay longer until you have at least 300 days in country.  We are leaving two weeks earlier, but by taking shorter vacations, we will have 302 days in country.)  If you take, say, 12 days per trip, including the travel time (inevitably at least three days, because it's pretty much impossible to get anywhere from Kabul without an overnight layover in Dubai or Delhi, the only international destinations other than Tehran that airplanes fly to out of Kabul), then it works out to about seven weeks working, two weeks out, then back to work.  You repeat that five times, then do you last seven weeks working, and it's time to go. We have discovered the wisdom of whoever decided you need a break every other month.  We are in week ten since our last vacation, with 11 more days to do.  And it is too long.  People better hope I run into a Taliban before long, because I'm certainly disposed to kill somebody, and it would be a shame if it were an innocent office mate.

Now time for the regular "How are things going?" update.

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Afghan-Suicide-Bomb-Blast-Kills-9-119971004.html

Yeah, still not going so great.