Going Postal

We arrive to the more industrial downtown, a huge boulevard of dashing buses and dala-dalas. There is a large concrete strip of buildings, including a bank, the backpacker hub of YMCA, and at last, the central Post Office.

Opening the doors, we find the main room crowded. There is no line, nor is there the conflict of people pushing and shoving to send or retrieve packages. Groups stand, unevenly clumped together, watching the uniformed postal workers deal with boxes and paperwork. I watch a petite mother kneel as she swaddles an infant to her back with a purple printed kanga. She glares up at me under darkly lined lashes, but when I shyly smile in greeting, she again surprises me with a vibrant grin.

George pushes through the people boldly, on a mission to the front desks. Everyone shifts to let us through. I hesitate to follow and grab his arm.

“George, isn’t everyone waiting in line?”

George stops and glances around.

“No line here, people are just doing things they need to.”

From the front desk, we are directed to weighing room. George again ignores the patrons and places the box on a small scale. A corpulent postal worker at the front waves her hands indignantly at George, lecturing him sharply. He shrinks away towards where I had waited:

“Here there is a line...”

His embarrassment seems to have redeemed him. As we wait, I find the opportunity to observe the crowd through adjoining windows of the main room. It seems that a visit to the post office is a family affair; there are young veiled wives with husbands and fathers in topis (traditional Muslim caps), quiet children staring wide-eyed at the packages and people. I’m intrigued by boxes held by the senders: what precious things are needed by loved ones too far to visit? What is it so thoroughly taped and cradled by that fragile girl, guided carefully by her brother; what could be hidden under that angular paper-wrapped anomaly, lifted by the graying African man—a bicycle frame, or a carving of sorts? Suited businessmen hold crisp white boxes, perhaps containing signed documents or machine parts. I catch a glimpse of a small crowd of nuns in the corner, stuffing an open box with cellophane-wrapped candy and school supplies.

“Where to?” The rotund woman asks, having placed the box on the scale at last.

“America.”

The weigh-officer winces, calculating the price of the box’s proposed journey. She slaps a sticker onto the package, and we trek back to the counter in the main room. I sense the intense observation of senders around me, equally curious about the Internationally bound box, as I had been about the brown-papered errands commanding their own days. Finally the box is taken away, and I am unburdened to wander alone, to tread the earth lightly.