Going Postal

February 11, 2008

Photos by author

The month of December happens to be a special one for me, because it is the month in which I was born (along with two other siblings). Plus of course it is also the month in which Christmas, Chanukah, Tabaski and other major world holidays happen to fall. It is therefore perhaps not altogether surprising that in the months of December and January I received a number of gorgeous packages from friends and family around the world, containing all sorts of lovely things including gorgeously scented soaps, floaty scarves, CDs, books, a calendar, post-its (always in short supply, along with digital camera batteries) and delicious homemade anisette cookies.

The closest post office is in Ouakam. There are several ways to get there, all of them equally unpleasant. There is the car rapide which I have already described on this site: extremely cheap and even fairly efficient, just rather odoriferous. If I wanted to go upscale, I could haggle interminably over a taxi, but this of course would leave me drained before I even made it to the temple of any governmental bureaucracy, which is never advisable. The round trip might cost me as much as six dollars US, which becomes prohibitive when you also consider the strange system in place here which requires the recipient to pay a tax of about seven dollars US per package. (Mind you, this is in addition to whatever exorbitant amounts the sender has already paid for postage in his/her home country). Because the process of going to the PO is so difficult and tiresome, I have been in the habit of asking one of the school janitorial staff to pick up any mail for me whenever he makes his usual run into town. Even with a small pecuniary acknowledgment of his goodwill, it costs me less in time and energy than venturing forth myself.

Human nature is perverse, however, and so one day I decided that if plan to stay in Dakar for two years, I really needed to emancipate myself, at least to the point of being able to tackle small things like going to the PO to pick up my own packages. So armed with my two flimsy pink PO package slips, each indicating a surplus tax of 3500 CFAs, I made my way Ouakam-ward. I also had written seven or eight postcards in feverish haste, thinking it might be nice to send real mail for a change, as opposed to the usual electronic kind. It is not easy to do, however, because the convenient system of mailboxes on street corners to which I had been accustomed is nonexistent here– you need to get up and go to the PO. Which I then did.

I arrived without incident and, as in all countries throughout the world, waited quite a while before making it to the window to greet a disgruntled and disoriented postal employee. I first asked for the stamps for my postcards, fully expecting this to be the easier of my two tasks. This seemed to involve higher mathematics, however, and clearly this was not the employee’s forte: would you believe that each postcard ended up having a different amount of money on it, though 3 were going to the US and 4 to Europe? This part of the ordeal lasted upwards of twenty minutes, whereupon she mistakenly thought we were done. Her face brightened as she looked down at her watch, then fell abruptly when I pulled out my slips with a friendly smile and a straightforward “Est-ce que vous pouvez m’aider avec cela aussi?” She responded to my sprightliness with a glare and a sigh. Unwillingly she took my slips and pulled out a student composition book with handwritten notes. Following the lines with her finger, she showed me sullenly that Abdoul had already picked up two packages for me just the other day, so (this was implicit) what was I bothering her for? Did I just enjoy tormenting PO employees? Couldn’t I find a more worthwhile hobby?

I explained as nicely as I could that yes, last week Abdoul HAD picked up two packages addressed to me, but that these two NEW slips represented two ADDITIONAL packages, because Abdoul would logically have had to surrender those other slips in order to receive the first two parcels, n’est-ce pas? If I thought that her selling me stamps had involved higher math, we had now graduated to astrophysics. She simply could not fathom how any mortal being might receive all these packages within such a short period; I was wasting her time. I kept insisting politely that she should please, please just take a look and verify. She adamantly refused and then declared open war on me by waving the next customer on ahead and serving him as I stood there, open-mouthed, fishlike with astonishment. But not for long, as Sagittarians are fire signs and have quite a temper when roused. I grew loud and belligerent, shouting “Ce n’est pas possible!” and gesticulating wildly, shocking all the mild-mannered Senegalese behind me (don’t forget that the very meaning of the word Islam is ’submission’). Forty-five minutes later I left with not TWO, but THREE packages that had arrived for me since Abdoul’s last visit, vowing never, ever to set foot in the Ouakam post office again if I could help it.

Adversity leads to creative problem-solving: I have now discovered that I can simply go to the fancy Meridien Hotel across the street to purchase my stamps and mail my postcards poolside - more civilized altogether, as I am sure you’ll agree from the accompanying pic!

About the Author : Tamara-Diana Braunstein brings us her stories from Senegal every week. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a restless wanderer who earned an MA from the University of Freiburg and has worked in a youth hostel in the French Alps, a law firm in Montreal, the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as in university press publishing. At the moment her home base is Dakar, Senegal, where she is supposed to be teaching but is doing far more learning, as you will see by reading her blog at www.senegalschoolmarm.blogspot.com