Day 212: "Expedited" Mail Service

"This is not a political issue. This is a moral issue -- it affects the survival of human civilization. Put simply, it is wrong to destroy the habitability of our planet and ruin the prospects of every generation that follows ours."

- Al Gore

My mother sent me a package from the U.S. containing my digital camera among other things. Unfortunately, she sent it to our physical address. The mail service here doesn't deliver like it does in the West. Everyone has a post office box and they send and receive their mail from there. If you send something to a physical address, you may never see it again. Thankfully, she included my mobile number, and Posta (the post office) called me to say it had arrived.

Mitra was kind enough to drive me down there because a week or so ago I hit my toe on a chair pretty hard. Luckily it isn't broken (we don't think) but it hurts enough to keep me from walking a lot. When we arrive, an employee pointed us toward another section of the post office marked "Expedited Mail Service (EMS)." When they told us to go to EMS, I knew we were in trouble because, simply put, nothing here is expedited.

Upon arriving they directed us to the one lady who is authorized to deal with incoming packages. Finding only one person in charge of something that a lot of people use is common, and as you'll see later, they're frequently not around. After producing my passport and answering a string of useless questions, she finally produces a slip of paper.

"You need to see a customs officer so they can check this," she said.

"Okay. Where are they?" I asked.

"They're at lunch," she responded, as if it were obvious. "Come back at 2."

We didn't have time to wait around and come back at 2, so I decided to go the next day. I went with Mitra's assistant, Mei Shirin, and we managed to collect the box from the woman and take it to the customs officers. Luckily they weren't on break, gone to lunch or just plain not there. After digging through the box, taking everything out and making a neat little list of what customs she planned to charge me, the woman proceeded to forcefully jam everything back into the box. She handed me a slip of paper and pointed to the other side of the room, telling me to go pay the cashier and then go back to the first woman.

When we got to the cashier's spot, no one was there. Naturally. And of course there's only one person authorized to act as the cashier.

"She's gone to the bank. Come back at 2," the customs officer said when we went back to ask her where the cashier was. Now why she didn't tell us that before sending us over there is beyond me. On top of that, it seems that everyone will be back at 2, so maybe I should just start going to places at 2.

On day three of trying to receive just one package, we finally managed to pay the cashier and then go back to the first lady. She also charged me money, which was written in the "other fees" section. I think that translates to "someone's pocket." At any rate, I finally got my box after three days of dealing with the Expedited Mail Service. And if that's expedited, I don't even want to know what the regular mail service is like.

Today is the International Day of Peace and the Office of External Affairs was involved in organizing the event with the United Nations. It was centered on children, so a bunch of primary and secondary schools were invited by partner organizers. Each school gave a presentation about peace, which included some Baha'i children. They went through the area with some banners I made that said: "We are the children of one planet. We are the children of one God. We want peace! Guess what we need from you? Be a peacemaker! Be a peaceworker!"

Originally we were supposed to assist one of the interfaith groups here (headed by a Baha'i) organize prayers at the beginning of the program, but on Tuesday we found out that he completely let us down. So on Wednesday, Mitra was scrambling to use all of her contacts to find religious leaders willing to come say a prayer. Through sheer tenacity and will she ended up with a Baha'i, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim. None of the Christians were willing to come! They were running us around in circles with the need for letters and authorization from the diocese and all kinds of nonsense. I mean, come on. What does it take to come and say a prayer for peace? At any rate, we managed to find one on the spot at the event.

In addition to the banners, we made a display about the Baha'i contribution to peace-related activities in Tanzania (the core activities), and I attended the planning meetings. If anything else it was a good opportunity to network with some of the NGOs in the city and let the U.N. offices know we're here and willing to help them when we can. Our ability to put together the prayers on such short notice certainly gave us a boost with the organizing U.N. agency, although all the credit for that goes to Mitra. All in all it was a successful event for the office.

Our next big task is United Nations Day. We're planning a panel discussion on "The Role of the Family in Building a Brighter Community" at the University of Dar es Salaam. There will be panelists from the U.N., the government, civil society, the university and the Faith (representing Faith-based organizations). We're working with the student association on campus to get the event accomplished and get the word out to the students and the faculty. I can see already that it's going to be stressful, especially since I'll be out of town for most of October, but God willing it'll come together. "Somehow," as they say here.