Opportunity Knocks

I enjoyed dinner last night with an old MP buddy of mine.  Who knew Afghanistan was the place to reconnect with old friends and co-workers?  We met up at the TGIFriday’s located on the Boardwalk.  This is my first visit to any restaurant on Kandahar.  These places are known to be expensive and the dining facility is free.  As some of you may know, I have been craving a greasy bacon cheeseburger for a long time, so one can imagine my smile when I saw “Cheesy Bacon Cheeseburger” on the menu.  And that is exactly what I enjoyed, minus the bacon because they were out of bacon.  This epic burger contained fried mozzarella, cheddar cheese, onion, tomato, pickle, lettuce, and a big patty of beef.  I was in heaven with a side of fries.  He enjoyed a non-alcoholic Budweiser and some shrimp pasta dish that really didn’t look all that appetizing (possibly because I was so engrossed in my cheeseburger).  We caught up on where we have been and where we want to go.  Then we breached the subject of what we are doing here.  He is here with the mission of assessing outlying Forward Operating Bases and they are short a Medical team member.  He asked if I would be willing to fill the position.  I told him I wasn’t even qualified to put a band-aid on his boo-boo to which he responded that wasn’t the intent of this position.  He needs someone to assess the Aid Stations and Clinics to ensure they were following Standard Operating Procedures and receiving the supplies necessary to run their daily operations.  I could do that and the job sounds a lot more interesting than my current position.  I told him I would ask my boss to see if it was feasible.

We had a different Priest hosting the Catholic service last night.  I think he was the same Priest that conducted a service while my unit was at Fort Polk for deployment training.  He has a very unique sense of humor and is from Nigeria.  It was an enjoyable service but it was crowded!  Looking around the room it was interesting to see that most people in attendance were civilians or local nationals that work on Kandahar.  The entire service was in English, as the Chaplains are all US Military, making it interesting to hear all the different accents.  Prior to the service, a rosary service was held.  The guy leading the rosary was a Local National.  I could tell that he had to practice a lot to recite the odd pronunciations of a foreign language.  He did a really nice job and it almost sounded like he was singing his portions. 

Today is nice, quiet, and full of Power Point Slide corrections.