KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In parts of Afghanistan where there are no street names or house numbers, utility companies and their customers have adopted a creative approach for connecting. They use mosques as drop points for bills and cash, a “pay and pray” system.
Now the national postal service wants to phase this out by putting mailboxes on every street across the country, part of a plan to modernize a service long challenged by bureaucracy and war.
The lofty aspirations include introducing access to shopping via e-commerce sites and issuing debit cards for online purchases. It will be a leap in a country where most of the population is unbanked, air cargo is in its infancy and international courier companies don’t deliver even to the capital, Kabul.
The changes mean Afghans will pay higher service fees, a challenge as more than half the population already relies on humanitarian aid to survive.
The Afghan Post, like much of the country, still does everything on paper. “Nobody uses email,” said its business development director, Zabihullah Omar. “Afghanistan is a member of the Universal Postal Union, but when we compare ourselves to other countries it is at a low level and in the early stages.” . . Post offices in Afghanistan are vital for women wanting to access services or products they would otherwise be denied, since they are often barred from entering ministries or other official premises.
But the spectre of the Taliban’s edicts targeting women and girls also looms at the Afghan Post.
At the entrance to the main Kabul branch, a sign tells women to correctly wear hijab, or the Islamic headscarf. One picture shows a woman with a red cross over her visible face. The other has a green check mark over the face because only her eyes are seen.
“Ran” in this context is part of a dialect of English in certain parts of the US. It is spoken that way, on purpose, by native speakers, and is thus perfectly correct.
Saying that it “makes people think you share teeth” shows that you are in fact aware of this cultural distinction and your problem with the usage is not about grammar but about classism, which is also clearly on show with your bigoted description of poor southern US people.
