A Mynah’s escape from Afghanistan

Juji the little Mynah with the French Ambassador’s residence in Abu Dhabi speaks Pasto, the language of the people of Afghanistan. Now it can utter “bonjour” which means hello in French.

The talking bird belonged to a small girl who made all the way from Kabul airport to UAE in a flight while she was trying to flee the devastated country on August 14, the day before Talibans took over Afghanistan. Reaching Abu Dhabi, she was trying to board a French flight from UAE to Paris with her beloved pet. “The girl arrived at Al Dhafra air base, in Abu Dhabi exhausted, with an unusual possession: a bird. She had fought all the way at Kabul airport to bring the treasured little thing with her,” the French Ambassador Mr Xavier Chatel wrote on Twitter.

She was in tears since she was allowed to board the flight but not her pet on grounds of hygiene. Lakhs of people from her country also could not take a few overcrowded flights that time.

Mr Chatel promised to try to reunite the girl with the little girl named Alai one day. About 2,600 at-risk Afghans left on French evacuation flights. “ I was moved. I promised to take care of the bird at the residence, feed him. She could visit him anytime and take him back,” the Ambassador wrote.

Mr Chatel bought a cage for the bird, fed it, and took it out in the mornings so he could meet other birds. Juji eventually “loosened” and started to “say mysterious things, in a language we couldn’t understand”. But with some prodding it is now speaking a little bit of French.