{"id":1349,"date":"2009-02-19T06:07:20","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T06:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?p=1349"},"modified":"2009-02-19T06:07:20","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T06:07:20","slug":"afghan-hound-ascent-into-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/afghan-hound-ascent-into-chaos\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghan Hound: Ascent into Chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"AfghanDubai: Monday 16 February 2009<\/p>\n

This is my third sortie into Kabul and my first with Ariana Afghan \t\t\tAirlines a.k.a. \u2018ScaryAnna\u2019 by its frequent flyers. I heard you don\u2019t \t\t\tget air miles with Afghanistan\u2019s national airline, but the rumour is \t\t\tyou do get free psychological counselling after every third flight. I \t\t\tnow know why\u2026<\/p>\n

Check-in is at Terminal Two. This is not the poor cousin of Dubai\u2019s new \t\t\tTerminal 3 it\u2019s the third son of its bastard uncle, twice removed. \t\t\tWhere as superlatives abound at the Norman Foster designed ultra-swanky \t\t\tnew airport with its 16 million square feet of Arabic over-indulgence, \t\t\tresplendent with glittering water and marble features and cavernous \t\t\tbejewelled cathedrals dedicated to mammon and boutiques that out-bling \t\t\tLondon\u2019s Bond Street. T2 is a less glamorous proposition, boasting one \t\t\tMcDonalds and a Duty Free Zone the size of a slightly above-average \t\t\tSeven\/Eleven. There are a total of five departure gates. If T2 were a \t\t\tcountry it would be Djibouti. The departure board reads like a Neo Con \t\t\thit list. Bush and son have bombed most of them. \u2018Terminal 2 \u2013 \t\t\tDestination: Axis of Evil\u2019 would be my honest rebranding suggestion.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing really wrong with it. It\u2019s modern, clean and \t\t\tfunctional. We are in the Emirates after all and Dubai is the new hub \t\t\tof the civilised world. Isn\u2019t it? However civilised though there is a \t\t\tsystem of understated Middle Eastern apartheid in operation<\/p>\n

To borrow from a Monty Python sketch; \u2018Infidels to the left\u2026 terrorists \t\t\tto the right.\u2019 All the men with beards, funny hats and dress shirts \t\t\tdepart from Terminal 2. Everyone else it\u2019s Terminals 1 & 3. It\u2019s \t\t\tprobably a sensible idea. A lot of nice people now visit Dubai (a \t\t\tholiday destination?) on a regular basis and they would, more than \t\t\tlikely, be freaked out by the large number of Mullah Omar look-a-likes \t\t\twandering round T2. Who on earth is going to buy a Frank Mueller watch \t\t\tor a Gucci handbag if you think the airport is full of hijacking, \t\t\texploding terrorist types? On the flipside, most of the female ex-pats \t\t\tout here hardly adopt the level of tasteful dress code that is usually \t\t\trequired in a \u2018Muslim country\u2019. So maybe this unspoken segregation \t\t\tmight be beneficial and maybe even help to defuse this \u2018Clash of \t\t\tCivilisations\u2019 we hear so much about.<\/p>\n

The irony of all this though is while Terminal Two may look like a \t\t\tTaliban convention, its second largest customer base is even weirder. \t\t\tI\u2019ll give you some clues. They\u2019re mainly Caucasian, cropped hair, \t\t\tbulging biceps, terrible taste in sunglasses, ridiculously large \t\t\tbiceps, tattoos with eagles. Are we there yet? Lets just say Blackwater \t\t\tgives this place a lot of business. I might be pushing the stereotype \t\t\tthing here, but T2 is a venue almost completely populated with two \t\t\tsections of society who have diametrically opposing world-viewpoints \t\t\tand for one brief hour or 10 as we all mope about waiting to board a \t\t\tplane to Destination Kill or somewhere borderline hostile there\u2019s a \t\t\tcrazy sort of \u2018WWI Christmas Day\u2019 neutrality. There is no friendly \t\t\tfootball kick-about but we eat the same shit and browse with tedious \t\t\tboredom the same rubbish sweets and booze emporium.<\/p>\n

For most of the \u2018mercenaries\u2019 here this is probably a new experience, \t\t\tthe last time they were this close to a Kandahar bound Pashto or an \t\t\tIraqi Sunni on his way to Baghdad they were probably unloading an M16 \t\t\tinto his front door or directing a Hell-Fire missile onto his brothers \t\t\twedding. But in T2 there are no IED\u2019s or VBSD\u2019s\u2026 the only hazards here \t\t\tare toilet related (more of that later).<\/p>\n

Oooh! That\u2019s my boarding call. Gate number five. Got to run\u2026 or maybe slowly walk the 20 yards.<\/p>\n

Lucky me! I have been upgraded. Business Class. The only reason was my \t\t\tname wasn\u2019t on the passenger list\u2026 but whose complaining? Business \t\t\tClass on Ariana has got to be better than Cattle Class. The last \t\t\tunfortunate I talked to who ventured aboard a ScaryAnna flight had a \t\t\tnasty interface with dripping poultry juice from the overhead cabin so \t\t\tI felt safe in the assured knowledge that Business might mean livestock \t\t\tfree. Although there was no sign of animal life in the front aft, the \t\t\tplane did smell vaguely of offal. The animal noises were provided \t\t\tcourtesy of the passenger next to me who was snoring loudly even before \t\t\twe set off. Nothing strange or interesting really other than the fact \t\t\tthat he was wearing airline maintenance overalls.<\/p>\n

Bit of a lumpy take off but nothing remarkable. Ten minutes into the \t\t\tflight a female member of the cabin crew roughly wakes my vibrating \t\t\tneighbour, not to quell the increasing level of his snoring. No, this \t\t\tseems somewhat more important. After a brief exchange in Dari he dashes \t\t\tup to the cockpit. Five minutes later the captain announces that we \t\t\twill be returning to Dubai and to shortly prepare for landing in a tone \t\t\tabout as nonchalant as you could get\u2026 like maybe he forget to lock the \t\t\tback door or he left the cooker on. Suddenly all of the ScaryAnna jokes \t\t\tstop being quite so funny. But there\u2019s no panic. No one\u2019s praying, the \t\t\tcabin crew are smiling, albeit nervously. To be honest it\u2019s all a bit \t\t\t\u2018inshallah\u2019,  a sort Muslim \u2018whatever\u2019 only with god in it. So as \t\t\tpromised we do a U turn and head back to Dubai. On landing we are \t\t\tchased by three fire engines, even though their lights are flashing it \t\t\tall looks a bit half-hearted. I guess it\u2019s just procedure. However, \t\t\tsome of the passengers are not as \u2018inshallah\u2019 as the rest and demand to \t\t\tleave the plane. There is a slight kerfuffle but calm eventually breaks \t\t\tout and resigned indignation settles into the few western passengers \t\t\twho stupidly booked with the nation\u2019s non-favourite airline.<\/p>\n

We all get off.<\/p>\n

Back in Arrivals it\u2019s pretty clear we are going nowhere soon. I think \t\t\tAriana only have 12 planes in the fleet and I\u2019m assuming, judging by \t\t\tour old banger, that half of them are in the repair shop and the other \t\t\tfive might be delivering passengers (albeit late or returning them to \t\t\twhence they came) to some other God forsaken place in the region. \t\t\tThat\u2019s our God not theirs.<\/p>\n

If Ariana were a country it would be Jamaica and \u2018Soon come\u2019 would be \t\t\tits motto. So what does one do in a terminal like this apart from \t\t\tfester and smolder? Remarkably there is free Wi-Fi. Unfortunately \t\t\treception is only available inside McDonalds who have, for the \t\t\tdelightful entertainment of their customers, placed three giant screens \t\t\tshowing competing Arabic Tele-Novellas, all at distortion-level volume. \t\t\tThere are very few real customers and I think most of them are eating \t\t\tas some form of boredom-alleviating light entertainment. That is until \t\t\tword gets out that passengers on our doomed flight are allowed a free \t\t\tdrink and a burger. Within minutes McDonalds is awash with Afghans. I \t\t\thave seen this sort of \u2018free-for-all\u2019 no nonsense eating before at a \t\t\twedding in Kabul. They devour food at an Olympic record rate. If \t\t\tAfghans were a type of insect, they would be the locust.<\/p>\n

Come \u2018call to prayer\u2019 time the noise abusers at McDonalds decide to \t\t\tturn the cacophony up to 11. God knows where the sound comes from but \t\t\twhen it does\u2026 you know its MC Prayer Time. If you\u2019re not quite clear \t\t\tabout the prayer message then a visit to the one toilet in the whole \t\t\tterminal will put you straight. It\u2019s rammed to the gills with Muslim \t\t\tchaps performing their ablutions. The toilet stalls resemble a car \t\t\twash. Water is everywhere. Toilet paper is non-existent and the only \t\t\tcleaning method is a hose with the water pressure so high it could \t\t\tstrip lead paint off a Victorian lamppost. Having given myself an enema \t\t\tand some colonic irrigation (not quite sure of the difference really). \t\t\tI exit like John Wayne to find 50-plus Pashtuns waiting to wash their \t\t\tfeet in the sink. Not something you\u2019ll witness in Terminal 3 I\u2019ll wager!<\/p>\n

I vaguely question airport staff about our doomed flight and the \t\t\tmythical status of the departure board. Shoulders are shrugged. Eyes \t\t\troll. Contradicting stories are told. I spend a week\u2019s earnings (well a \t\t\tPhillipino remittance kid\u2019s wage) in Costa Coffee and discuss the Dubai \t\t\tbubble bursting with the cheery yet disillusioned and vastly underpaid \t\t\tstaff. Everyone talks of leaving here soon. Me too\u2026 I wish.<\/p>\n

Twelve hours late my flight is finally re-called. Well it\u2019s not \t\t\tactually announced it\u2019s more like noticing the pronounced shuffle of a \t\t\tgaggle of people who look like they belong in Kandahar heading towards \t\t\ta gate. I join the queue and muse on the lesson learned; despite \t\t\tgetting up at 3am and totally wasting a whole day in a really \t\t\texpensive, crap airport terminal you know what really strikes me? \t\t\tNobody really gives a fuck. If this happened in Terminal 3, everyone \t\t\twould have been kicking off, threatening to sue, moaning and groaning \t\t\tabout missed connections and work. Life and death stuff. In T2 most \t\t\tfolk just shrug and sit and wait and see. How does the song go? \t\t\t\u201c\u2026Whatever will be, will be, the future\u2019s not ours to see, que cera \t\t\tcera\u201d. If Terminal 2 was a drug it would definitely be Valium.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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