Time to pull the plug

Well, this opportunity hasn't quite lived up to expectations due to all kinds of factors beyond my control, and there's not much hope of seeing them resolved in the near future, so I've decided to terminate my contract early and head home. I should be back in Washington, DC, by August 25th.

I can't get into details, but the two main problems entail the inability of various US and UK government people for whom we work to get along, as well as problems at the Ministry to which I was assigned as a mentor. First, there are huge disagreements between the US and UK embassy people we have to work with over who should be doing what. Then a transfer of authority took place two weeks ago that led to the halting of our involvement in the project. On the Afghan government side, the ministry official whose department I was assigned to mentor didn't do the paperwork to continue paying his people, he ran out of money for salaries and the staff was let go about five days after I arrived. Hence, there is no one there for me to mentor and it will be weeks, if not months, before they will be able to rehire staff.

I can't tell you how incredibly disappointing this is.

Although I've been able to stay relatively busy with things like the golf tournament, it's not enough when you have to spend most of your time behind the walls of a small compound and are not free to roam around because of security concerns.

And although I have missed my husband and family very much and I'm looking forward to returning to them early, I had high hopes for this assignment.

I don't do well to just sitting around. So it's time to move on.

On the social front, a new Tex-Mex restaurant is holding its grand opening tonight and we plan to go sample the food. Tex-Mex in Kabul -- can't wait!

Cheers