At the Post Office

I had a little adventure a couple of weeks ago that I’d like to relate to you. I did not know it at the time but I was the first in our group, which has been here, in one form or another, for about two years, to try and mail a package back to Canada. Now as a practised sender of Strong Bad paraphernalia, books, maps and telephones through the Canadian mail system, I approached the Ethiopian equivalent in a nonchalant and confident manner. Boxing up my gifts I double wrapped them in brown paper, taped the box up to survive the depredations of the most ham-handed postie, and labelled it ferociously. Secure in the knowledge that all I had to do was get the box weighed, affix the proper postage and it would soon be winging its way west, I headed to the baroque palace that is the Addis Ababa Main Post Office.

My first clue that I was entering the postal equivalent of the twilight zone was the queue of people holding various flotsam and jetsam in their arms waiting to be yelled at by a small woman behind a counter. Having neither flotsam nor jetsam, and not really wanting to be yelled at by the Ethiopian equivalent of Dr Ruth, I searched for the line up of smug self-satisfied package mailers. Alas, to no avail. With growing dread I realized that I was meant to line up with the other poor souls, and as I approached the counter a further fact struck me – they want to look inside the box! Now my efforts to hermetically seal the box came back to haunt me as I tried to preserve the wrapping (not a chance) and labels (partially) while getting the box ready for inspection. I had just got it open when I got to the counter and confronted the dragon lady. A shrewd opponent she noted that I was not Ethiopian, well spotted, and used what I was later to discover was one-third of her English vocabulary on me; “What!” she barked, which I took to be a request to see what it was I was impudently attempting to mail out of Ethiopia. I produced the meagre contents of the box: a couple of bear-shark T-shirts, souvenir figurines, a straw basket and a birthday card. She examined them and evidently found them worthy of exit. “Where?” was the next query, to which I hesitantly replied “In the box?” This confused her but a moment as she then repeated her query while pointing at a very old map of the world. Passing up the opportunity to send my box to such exotic locales as the Bechuanaland Protectorate or The Low Countries, I pointed in the general direction of Rupert’s Land and said “Canada?” This seemed to satisfy her curiosity as she then began to consult the “Great Big Book of Postal Rates” which teetered on her counter. I was now left with the task of reassembling my package. Not being prepared for this eventuality I had not brought my tape nor my scissors. One of my fellow benighted ones helpfully pointed out the Post Office Shop nearby, to which I trotted, abandoning my spot in line. It was at this point that the great conspiracy that is the Ethiopian Post Office came to light. You see once they have got you to rip open your box, you have little choice, if you are a dopey ferengi that is, but to purchase vastly overpriced shipping materials in Costco-like quantities. So armed with 8 rolls of tape and 4 pairs of scissors I reassembled my package and rejoined the line.

When I got back to the counter with my box, I proceeded to the next step – weighing the package. I now regretted adding 2 kilos of tape to secure the box as the cost to ship it was 280 Birr, which is about $40. Lastly the counter lady applied three different rubber stamps liberally to every surface of the box. I think she was actually just trying to paint the box blue, and she almost succeeded. So, safe in the knowledge that it couldn’t get any more complicated or bureaucratic, I left the post office in time to see my box being strapped to a donkey for the trip to Canada, and a clumsy donkey at that. But if you have been reading this blog you know that….donkeys don’t stop, so my package arrived safely at its destination a mere 17 days later.

Ribs the Dog

This is a bit of sad tale, so those of you with low tear thresholds proceed at your own risk. About three weeks ago a scruffy black and white dog began hanging around the front gate at Canada House. She would scrounge for food scraps and after we paid her some attention our cook's assistant would give her leftovers. She was rail thin, so we called her "Ribs" as you could see all of hers through her fur. Well about a week later Ribs proceeded to give birth to ten puppies on our doorstep. One of the neighbor's rigged up a bit of den in the hedge next to the house and the puppies were set up. Well, if you thought we were feeding her before she became a Mom, you should have seen the food she got afterwards. Ribs took to camping out right in front of the gate and the guards helped her by chasing away the hyenas, yes I did say hyenas, from the den. As an aside, these aren't the goofy Whoopi-Goldberg-voiced hyenas of Lion King fame, no gentle reader hyenas are very aggressive hunters. The females are much bigger than the males and can get as big as a small donkey.

Anyway, Ribs and the puppies seemed to be getting along just fine when we noticed that Mom started acting lethargic and unresponsive. A couple of days later (this past Thursday night) one of our group found her in the bushes, very near death. The hyenas got her that night and we have inheirited eight two week old puppies (two were adopted by neighbor's). We fed them on Friday and Saturday and then decided to move the den into our compound to keep the predators away. We washed them and tried to remove as many flea and louse eggs as possible before setting them up in a plastic and rug based den in the back yard. They were a little traumatized by the move, but seem to have adapted. One seems to be convinced that my shoe is its mother.

Fortunately we have found a shelter in town, I did not think Addis would have such a thing given the hundreds of stray dogs we have seen, and in a week they will be old enough to be taken in by the NGO that runs it. We have also been trying to interest our colleagues in adopting the pups, whom we have also named after bones, in honour of their mother. So little Tibia, Fibula, Radius, Ulna, Scapula, Femur, Patella and Humerous are doing fine for now. One of our group is lobbying his family back in New Brunswick to allow him to bring one home. Anyone want a puppy?

Lucy, You got some 'splainin' to do!

We went to see the Natural History Museum in Addis this past weekend and saw the bones of Lucy, the oldest human. They are 2.5 Million years old and are grouped with other remains of similar age found in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia. Famous as she is, Lucy would not have been on the Australopithicus First Squad basketball team, as she was only 3 ft tall, but it was impressive nonetheless, to see her remains. They are not the real bones, of course, they are plaster casts. The real bones are stored away in climate controlled conditions, or so the sign said. We also got to see Emperor Haile Selassie's incredibly huge throne. You could easliy have seated five emperors in sort regal slumber party on that huge velvet bench. The throne for the Empress was much smaller, in comparison, but was much more heavily gold encrusted.

The museum also housed the crowns of the last five emperors. They must have done a lot of neck exercises as those things looked very heavy! Upstairs in the museum were housed many artifacts of life in ancient Ethiopia and some rather impressive art. Some of it was right out of the Joseph Stalin School for Government Artists as it was from the Derg era. Lots of heroic looking Ethiopians gaining control of the means of production while smashing the capitalist running dog type stuff. Outside they had one of the cannons used to defeat the Italian Army at Adowa in 1896, the only time and African army beat a European colonizing force, and the source of much native pride.

After our visit to the museum we went into the tukul (thatched roof hut) that housed the museum's cafe and had a coffee ceremony while watching a track and field meet on the television. Another good Sunday outing.