In the category of "random perks" the USO tour traveling around Afghanistan, with Kathleen Madigan, Lance Armstrong, Kix Brooks (of Brooks and Dunn - look them up), Lewis Black and Robin Williams stopped at the Embassy. What that meant for most of my colleagues was waking up at 9:00 am on a Friday morning (our one official day off) to enjoy a quick but fun show and photo op with the stars. For me it meant a week of trying to find a sound system big enough for the show, a way to get the technician onto the compound to run the sound and mixer, trying to find a way to provide foldback (look it up - I had to), negotiating how we would make someone work on an Afghan holiday -
Ashura (I looked it up for you) and then if we can pay an honorarium to the person who worked. Luckily my colleague Yama saved the day. He translated complicated words like mixer and reverb into Dari and back into English. Unfortunately, we did not have that lesson when I was in language class. The audience was mostly soldiers, but it was nice of the USO to recognize that over 1100 civilians are now working in Afghanistan. And the humor, while a bit harsh, was just what people needed. I think the challenges here can get to you and recognizing the difficulties, and then being allowed to laugh at them with other people, makes it a little better. And the accomplishment for the day was my pic with Lance. He was really happy to get that pic with me - I know he had been waiting a while in line with the rest of the people for a while.
Well, maybe it was more mutual....
In the category of "random perks" the USO tour traveling around Afghanistan, with Kathleen Madigan, Lance Armstrong, Kix Brooks (of Brooks and Dunn - look them up), Lewis Black and Robin Williams stopped at the Embassy. What that meant for most of my colleagues was waking up at 9:00 am on a Friday morning (our one official day off) to enjoy a quick but fun show and photo op with the stars. For me it meant a week of trying to find a sound system big enough for the show, a way to get the technician onto the compound to run the sound and mixer, trying to find a way to provide foldback (look it up - I had to), negotiating how we would make someone work on an Afghan holiday - Ashura (I looked it up for you) and then if we can pay an honorarium to the person who worked. Luckily my colleague Yama saved the day. He translated complicated words like mixer and reverb into Dari and back into English. Unfortunately, we did not have that lesson when I was in language class. The audience was mostly soldiers, but it was nice of the USO to recognize that over 1100 civilians are now working in Afghanistan. And the humor, while a bit harsh, was just what people needed. I think the challenges here can get to you and recognizing the difficulties, and then being allowed to laugh at them with other people, makes it a little better. And the accomplishment for the day was my pic with Lance. He was really happy to get that pic with me - I know he had been waiting a while in line with the rest of the people for a while. 
Well, maybe it was more mutual....