Easter Auctions and Christmas Arrivals

This year Easter was a step-up from last year. To start with, I was in a country that acknowledged that the holiday existed. To make it even better they celebrated it two days in a row (Sunday and Monday). The kick-off to the event was a trip to the Catholic Church with my sister. She told me that mass started at 9AM so we left the house at 8:45. We were the sixth and seventh people to arrive. After sitting outside for about 45 minutes we went inside. While I know it’s not so cool for an 18-year-old girl to hangout with a foreigner who is rendered mute by lack of language skills, it’s Easter after all. I was so hurt when my sister made me unsquish myself from the row with her and her friends and move in with another host family whose volunteer was not with them. Not only feeling hurt now, I was completely confused. The man that appeared to be a priest turned into an auctioneer. When he started asking how much money for a bunch of bananas I thought was using this as a lead in to the Easter mass. Was I ever confused when people started bidding and then the man came over to collect the money! As the novelty began to wear off (30 minutes later), out comes a live chicken from the plastic bag and the mad bidding starts. The lucky winner and his whole row benefited as they got to keep the chicken at their feet for the remaining 2 ½ hours of mass. Once the mass actually began, my sister and her friends went to sit on the alter as readers and singers AND my host mom came rolling in at 10:45 to sit next to me! A happy Easter morning after all.

Three weeks ago Molly received an email from the Guinea admin saying our bags from Guinea have been shipped. Anxious, ready and willing to have this final connection to Guinea we ask the Madagascar admin every few days if they have heard anything about our bags. Finally, while in the capital for some event we ask the office staff who has email and contact with the outside world. By the next business day, we have confirmation that they are at the airport sitting in the freight area. The following business day, a PC employee attempts to pick them up. The next day Molly and I are driven from the training site to the airport in the capital to pick them up. It was determined that we had to be there in person. However, before we could make it to the airport we stopped in the office and are told there are some fees associated with the bags. Even better, we might have to pay them but we will be told for sure in 15 minutes. Neither Molly nor I wanted to ask how much it was since we had no intention of paying. Awhile later, we are told that the combined total of fees to pick them up is $1,100USD (NOT shipping just to pick them up). We are PCVs! Next step is to have the US embassy waive the fees but it will take another 24 hours to fill out the form.

The next morning we wake up at 4AM to go on a field trip so what we can be back in time to pick up the bags before lunch. We are 25 minutes late and now have to wait until after lunch. Once we get to the airport we visit 4 different locations filling out forms or getting them stamped before the PC staff member is allowed to go into the warehouse to look for our bags. After standing in the warehouse dodging forklifts and hand operated carts for 2 ½ hours we lost all sense of sanity. What we though was originally good news turned out to backfire pretty quickly. Only my items were getting hand searched and only one of the five items was mine. For the next 2 hours we watched the PC staff member run around buying forms to fill out, waiting for them to find our now lost baggage, getting more stamps on the forms and finally determining that what the shipping form said was in the box was not.

Once we finally got the bags, I was informed that an empty bag was sent to me. I was not only surprised but also quite disappointed by this unpleasant “Christmas” gift. The customs problem was that the list said there were clothes in the box but it really contained a few larger unnamed (on the form) items and an empty bag. Needless to say when I finally opened the box later that evening, I found a bag full of books, clothes and all the items I had packed. Christmas was not so disappointing after all!