Postal system

The Rwandan postal system is an absolute mystery to me, and I don’t think there’s any hope of understanding it. We have a single mailbox at the post office for our project, so someone goes once a day to pick up the mail and distribute it at the office. If you receive a package, there is a slip of paper in the mailbox so you have to go to the post office to pick it up. Going to the post office was confusing in and of itself the first time. I walked into the post office and looked for the window written on my card (number eight) but only saw one through six. Finally someone explained that I had to go back outside and pointed down the street. So I started walking and finally came across the room filled with mailboxes. I didn’t think this was where I needed to be, since I had neither a key nor did I think my package could fit in the tiny mailbox numbered eight. With a man on one side of me trying to sell me postcards and one on the other trying to convince me that I needed an enormous, colorful map of Rwanda, a third man approached who implied he would show me where to go. We walked back out of the building (followed by my new friends with their postcards and maps) and down the street again. This time, I was directed through a small gate into a dirt parking lot, and just as I was convinced that I was definitely in the wrong place, someone saw the slip of paper I was carrying and directed me into a tiny room in the basement of the post office. Amazingly, it was window eight. However, even though the room was barely thirty square feet in size, the process had only just begun. I first walked to one counter where I handed over my package slip. Then I wrote and signed my name in two different places. Next I had to go into the office of the man from customs where I signed another log. Then I went to another table where I had to pay the fee for my package and sign my name yet again. The payment scheme is yet another mystery. The first time I received a package, I had two moderately heavy boxes and my fee was 1,200RWF (appx. US$2). The second time, my slip said that I owed 4,250RWF (appx. US$9), so I was convinced I had an enormous, heavy package waiting for me, and instead I received a box that was a bit smaller and much lighter than either of the previous ones. Still another mystery is that the first package arrived in two weeks while the second took just over two months, and I have friends who have had to wait months as their packages disappeared in Kenya or India. Maybe it’s just best not to ask questions.