What the Heck do they Think Calendars are For?

Today is Sunday, the first day of the Afghan work week. Tuesday will be a holiday, Nohruz, the first day of the Muslim New Year. The government is now talking about moving the Education Day holiday to Wednesday, which would automatically make Thursday a government holiday as well, since it's the last day of the work week and they only work half days on Thursday anyway.

BUT THEY STILL HAVEN'T MADE A DAMN DECISION.

The government does have calendars. Neither Nohruz nor Education Day are lunar (i.e. the dates are fixed, unlike certain other holidays where people watch for the moon and then declare the holiday). Why can't they make these decisions in advance?

Oh, but they can.

They're just to [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] to do it. And these are the key organizational skills which somehow make the Afghan government qualified to manage billions of US dollars in aid money? Granted, they do have an argument that the westerners aren't doing a whole heck of a lot better - money is wasted, spent on too many bloated ex-pat salaries, etc., etc. But at least we use our freaking calendars!!!

If I knew for sure that I had five non-work days coming up, I might be able to plan a trip out of here. But even if the holidays do go through, my company could well decide to work Wednesday and Thursday anyway.

My escape from Afghanistan isn't looking good.