Sunday, March 30, 2008

Germany in Afghanistan

It is sometimes funny to see how things from one place show up in another place where you really would not expect it. For example I was quite surprised to find the lorry from Skara in Pisco, Peru.

Maybe less surprising, but still quite funny were all the German tourist busses in Kabul. Not tourist busses in the sense that German tourists were travelling to Kabul by bus, no these busses had made their journey on their own and were now in use as transport between cities. The funny thing was that they were still in original paint with the German company name painted on the side or “Ferienreisen” in large letters all over. The best ones were the ones that had had to be repainted by one reason or another and when doing that the Afghans who most likely did not know any German at all spelt it all rather, well let’s say, creatively….

On leaving Afghanistan I also noticed another sign of German influence. In my passport!!
Maybe that is actually not so strange, as I know the Germans are supporting training of the Afghan police and security sector reform. But somehow one could think they could have provided them with new stamps instead of giving them old German ones. So now I have in my passport two stamps from Kabul International Airport showing entry on the 12 and exit on the 20 “März” 2008!!

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