This is not a Baby Home post today as much as a 'Day in the life of
Amy' post.....if you are looking for 'baby news', you will have to
wait another day or so!!
Some days I crave Asda. I don't miss the actual shop - or even the
goods inside the shop - I just sometimes crave the simplicity of
parking my car, going into ONE building and being able to buy a
number of non related items without it taking an entire day.
On Thursday I had a few items to buy for the Baby Home: black
marker pens, a torch, some milk, a single bed sheet, some A4 paper,
some string and an umbrella. I know that in my 'old life' in
England, I could have nipped into Asda and got all of those items
and be in and out within about 10 minutes.
We do not have that luxury in Mwanza!
The shops here are all small and sell very specific items - the
black marker pen shop for example, sells marker pens, and maybe
even a biro....but it would never sell paper as well! So - shopping
lists like mine above, take a number of different shops and a lot
of patience (especially since every shop will also have no change,
no power to work the till, a broken calculator so the buttons 3,5,0
and = don't work and an owner who is currently off to pray, so just
closing his shop as you get to the door!)
My Thursday morning began with a very frustrating shopping dash
around town (it was also pouring with rain and in order not to get
your car clamped which happens to me on a weekly basis - you have
to park your car in one of the 'safe spots' and walk)
So I was wet and mad and tired and wishing, just a little bit, for
Asda.
My trip ended with the Post Office - I needed to try to collect a
few parcels for the Baby Home. I say 'try' because it isn't as easy
as it sounds - in fact - it is not easy at all! I have lived here
for 9 and a half years and I
still do not
understand the Post Office system here.
In fact - I HATE the Post Office......sometimes collecting a parcel
can take up to 3 hours - there is no rhyme nor reason as to which
counter you should stand at, whether you are charged for collection
or not, whether the man from Immigration has to come to open your
parcel to check the contents, or even if they can actually find
your parcel once you have spent half the day waiting!
That's how it USED to be - before the refurbishment started. Now, I
miss the chaos and un-organisation of before - what I witnessed on
Thursday, made that look like a perfectly sensible and well oiled
system!
On Thursday when I went in, I found the Post Office closed (due to
the ceiling falling in after the huge rains we have been having) I
was directed around the back to the 'sorting office'. It is quite
an apt name actually - it could (at a push) be called an 'office'
and it most definitely needed sorting! There were letters and
parcels and sacks strewn all over the floors, amongst rubbish and
empty boxes and, if you looked hard enough - you'd see
employees...sitting on chairs filing their nails, reading, drinking
tea....anything but working.
I hurdled over boxes and sacks to approach the friendliest looking
Post Office Worker to give my parcel slips to, only to be snarled
at and told to wait. So I did. And waited. And waited. Eventually,
sighing and huffing and puffing at me, she got up and handed my
differently coloured postal slips to various workers (who all threw
evil looks at me for actually having the audacity to ask them to do
some work!) and then they all sat back down. And told me to wait
some more.
So - the waiting went on for a long time - I'd say about 2 hours in
total. And while I waited (getting more and more frustrated!) I
watched the totally chaotic and unsystematic way they chose to look
for my parcels. The coloured slips represent something (but I still
have no idea what?!) and in the old system - yellow slipped parcels
were kept on the floor, blue in a wardrobe, white on top of the
wardrobe and pink under the counter - see, a system!
In the interim refurbishing period - it seems that this
'organisation' has gone out of the window, and the Postal drivers
now arrive with a sack of letters, and literally tip them onto the
floor. Everyone else stands over them to get to their 'designated'
chair....where they sit all day, and nothing ever gets posted or
sorted at all!
Eventually, one by one, the staff got up and 'looked' for the
parcel they were seemingly responsible for finding for me. Some
kicked a few envelopes on the floor, tutted, shook their heads and
muttered something incomprehensible to me which I could only guess
was that they couldn't find it. Others (to be fair) used their
hands and moved and lifted and read the names on 4 or 5 letters and
parcels (our of probably 3,000 strewn across the floor) and
muttered their apologies about not being able to find mine. And
others just didn't bother to even stand up and try!
I was starting to get a little irate by now....and started huffing
and puffing myself, cursing Tanzania and its lack of systems and
logic and wondering why we chose to live here instead of a 'normal'
country where letters get posted through your front door!
Suddenly, just as I was about to leave in temper, a song came on
the radio and one of the staff (a rather large lady I may add)
squealed in delight, jumped up, turned up the volume to full blast
and started dancing right there in front of me (on top of and in
between all the letters and parcels!) As soon as the other workers
saw her, they all hurried to join and I was given a brilliant,
synchronised dance routine!
They were fabulous! They were laughing and whistling and dancing so
energetically, wiggling their bottoms and parading around the floor
- I could barely remember the reluctant workers I'd sat willing to
work for the past 2 hours! For whatever reason, they all knew this
particular song and the dance routine which went with it and all
danced in time, singing along - it was like a professional music
video (I use the term professional in a slightly loose term - if
you have ever seen a Tanzanian music video you will understand what
I mean!)
(For a taster of something similar to what I witnessed in the Post
Office - see
here:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI_TdEmHeaA&feature=related
Anyhow, after all that, I left
without my parcels on
Thursday - but with a very big smile on my face! This is the reason
I live in Tanzania - we may have a dreadful postal service; and
qualities such as order and structure and logic even common sense
may be seldom found here - but I live among passionate, people who
love life and who really couldn't give two hoots about some white
woman's parcels!
I will remember that trip to the post office for the rest of my
life - it reminded me (and I DO need reminding sometimes!) why I
LOVE Africa and its people.
The drive home was interesting - after all the rain from the
morning - we had virtually no roads left! The gushing 'rivers' of
water which had poured down the roads all morning had left behind
huge amounts of rubble, rubbish and not a lot of road!
Of course - the REAL reason I live here is in this very short video
I took this morning of our little Miracle Man - Baraka. Here he is
two months ago:
And this tiny video is the Baraka we know and love today!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8rSN8LlUaw&feature=youtu.be
Now THAT (along with Post Office dancing!) is why I love living
here!!