Special Announcement for Afghans
I was flying from Delhi back to Kabul after having been on a few flights in Southeast Asia. Normally, in-flight safety announcements for passengers in airplanes were all similar. Since the flight from Delhi to Kabul was mostly Afghans so the announcement was a bit more tailored to us. The announcement said, smoking in the airplane is strictly prohibited. Then it added, “not even in the toilets”. They’d obviously found cigarette butts in the toilets before that and decided to change the announcement hoping that it’ll work. The announcement also requested us to switch our phones off but then there were my fellow Afghans making phone calls for final goodbyes after the announcement. They would to tell their family/friends how they were in the airplane and flying right then. I wanted to Tweet it but my phone was off 😉 You know how short our telephone conversations are here in Afghanistan. There was one American, one Briton and one Afghan and they were all in hell together. They missed their families and they wanted to call back home. The American called home and talked to his family for four minutes and the Satan brought the bill and it was $20000. Then the Brit called home and talked with his family for three minutes and he was billed $15000. Finally, it was the Afghan’s turn to call home. He called and talked to his family for three hours. Satan brought the bill and it was $3 and then the American and the the Brit complained to him why they were so ridiculously overcharged and why the Afghan was charged so cheap. Satan told them that it was a local call. From hell to hell is local price. I say this with a lot of love but we do talk a LOT most of us enjoy breaking some small rules like the one on the airplane.