Do you have watery diarrhoea?
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Flying in or out of Baghdad is always a stressful ordeal due to a lack of organisation on the ground rather than fears of a missile blasting the plane from the sky.
My latest exit at the weekend was no exception with the added absurdity of receiving a form to fill in on the flight to Amman that asked intimate questions about the consistency of my stools.
Under a section entitled “Health Status” the A5-sized piece of card proceeded to ask whether I had diarrhoea, giving me the choice of two boxes, yes and no.
The next question required anyone suffering such a condition to go into greater detail.
“Type of diarrhoea, bloody, watery,” it asked, with adjacent boxes for afflicted passengers to tick accordingly.
I have no idea why we were given this form. The air steward who handed it to me was also unable to offer a good reason, simply saying that it was a new procedure.
Upon arrival in Amman, the ground staff were similarly ill-informed.
Despite repeated attempts to offload the completed form (indicating proudly that my bowels were in good order), no one seemed to know anything about it so I left the airport with the slip folded inside my passport.
All rather odd. I wondered whether it was another tactic used by the Jordanian immigration authorities to vet Iraqi nationals travelling to Amman.
Jordan has tightened entry restrictions following a huge influx of Iraqi refugees fleeing the violence across the border. At least one Iraqi official travelling on a separate, US military plane to the Jordanian capital was turned back on Sunday.
Diarrhoea forms aside, flights to and from Baghdad are surreal enough.
admin @ February 8, 2008