Post Office Debacle

Warning: This post outlines is a weak point in life here, I'm really still quite happy about most everything else... 

The post office is really the bane of my existence here. I know I made a list of things I “hate” last week…but the post office just might be on a whole new level. Not only does it take at least 4 weeks for any mail to get here, trying to predict when the post office will be open is a game I really don’t like to play. Mostly because the answer varies by day, by week, by month…. When we got back from break, we were expecting a few letters and packages from people back home wishing us Merry Christmas. So we went to Rulenge after school one day, and thankfully she was open. However, we only had one letter each, which wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for.  I should mention that to get to the post office, we either walk for an hour and a half to get there, or we pay $4 to take a piki piki ride there. Considering $4 is 2% of my monthly budget and I’m already paying $4 a day to get to school, that’s a bit steep. At this point, we figured we better wait a few weeks before we try again.

            Then, this week, we heard from a friend in Rulenge that we had received letters and packages, and that we could pick them up at 4:30 on Thursday. Good news! Marisa had to leave Thursday for Kigali, but that wasn’t going to stop me from going to the post office at precisely 4:30. It was a really nice afternoon, so I decided to walk after school. So I trudged up and down the mountains and finally arrived at exactly 4:33. Not bad huh? Well, it wouldn’t have been bad if it would have been open… but as you may have guessed, it was certainly closed. AH!

           

Ahhhhh.

           

            Well, at this point, I didn’t walk all 7km to Rulenge for nothing. I figured I would just take out some money and buy some of things we need, like a ream of paper and toilet paper. However, the phone network was down, which is how I access my money. I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, considering how horrible my service is on a daily basis, as anyone who has ever tried to call me can attest to. So with $6 to my name, I waved down a piki driver to take me home. I figured I could afford the $2 after all of that. And while everything else seemed to be going wrong, I at least made it home minutes before it started down pouring.

            Needless to say, I’m learning patience and persistence on a whole new level. But this still does not make up for the fact that I could really use the deodorant my mother sent me…