The
son of the Iraqi Minister of Transportation was on a holiday in Beirut. There’s
not much business left in this town these days anymore, so for the sake of this
story, I assume it was a holiday.
But
all holidays end at one point in time, and he had to catch a flight back to
Baghdad. Problem was; he missed his flight. Don’t you know that feeling? You’re
running and running, but when you get to the gate, you just see the plane
taking off. If only they would have waited for another 5 minutes. 5 minutes!!!
That’s all it took. Well, what can you do?
Quite
a lot, it seems, if you are the son of the Iraqi Minister of Transportation.
You call home. And you explain them your dilemma. I can just image this conversation. "Ya baba! The plane left without me!!"
“No problem, son,” it goes on the other land of the line,” we’ll fix that for you. I
will just advice the pilot that we will not give him permission to land in
Baghdad. This way he will have to return to Beirut. And then you get on board.
You see, problem fixed.”
Not
quite. Because here’s a plane with a number of Lebanese on board, who all want
to go to Baghdad, and then the plane returns to Beirut International Airport
for an odd reason; ‘No permission to land?’ And they raised hell.
Result?
The Iraqi Minister of Transport is the man in power. So nothing happened
to him.
The son of the Iraqi Minister of
Transport? He may get slightly reprimanded during the
next family dinner. “Now son, don’t do this again, it caused me quite some embarrassment, you know."
The Assistant
Airport manager of Baghdad Airport? He got arrested. Now that’s what you call
‘screwed’.
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And
I will leave you with a picture of a lovely coffee shop in Hamra (Iyyam et Loulou) , with a nice
colorful façade, while the orange road pylons take up the public parking space,
and the overhead wires ensure that people have electricity even when the
government doesn’t provide it.
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For
some more entertainment:
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