tracking down lost parcels

A friend of mine had been expecting a couple of parcels containing birthday presents for her daughter which had never turned up, so we headed downtown to try and track it down.


Firstly you must of course know that you had been sent a parcel and where it was from. Once you get to the Postabait you have to check the books for missing parcels - by place they had been sent from.

We requested to look at the book of parcels from Australia and we found one listed for their family- hurrah- that was a good start, although the other one containing chocolate was sadly not listed so is still missing....

Then the lady asked for some ID, which my friend gave. Then the lady wanted a photocopy of her ID so we went in search of a photocopier. Once we had the photocopy we went back...it didn't take too long before she had the parcel ready so it all looked good.

However, we apparently needed to wait for someone else to come to release the parcel. And he was at lunch...of course he was....yes this is feeling more like Africa now - nothing is as easy as it could be.

Eventually the man came, he checked the name in the book, he checked the ID, he wanted more ID, he wanted to know if we knew who the parcel was from - which we did, but that still didn't seem to satisfy him, he wanted a phone number, I can't even remember what else, I just remember it seemed a bit of a saga at the time with forms and signing this and that before they would give my friend her own parcel!!

Anyway, eventually we left with the parcel containing birthday gifts - hurrah!! And much as the process let us know this is Africa there was no bribing or anything involved, we've not seen the corruption we experienced in West Africa here in Ethiopia which is great.

And a little note at the end - receiving post is great, and as far as we know we've not had any problems with our mail arriving here safely so please feel free to write!!

PS Our address:
Bingham Academy
PO Box 4937
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia