Gone Postal

Today was the day to pick up the Mission mail. We have to travel to Adum to go to the post office and bank once a week. The drive is not really too far but the traffic determines how long it takes. The drive took about 20 minutes. However...the whole process of picking up the mail took us 2 1/2 hours. They have a crazy system here.  You go to about 4 different buildings to collect it all...

This is a back road in Adum. 

Some sort of speaker had a lot of attention here at this building.

                 

Our first stop. See the post boxes in the background?

This is where we get packages.

Next stop, the mail box for letters. There located in little hallways through out a second building. 

This is the customs office where you go to pay for extra duty fees on boxed packages. Unfortunately it's very expensive. They open the boxes and go thru everything and determine what to charge you for each item. The poor missionaries end up paying the extra fees out of their small amount allowed to them each month. Not good.

I think we left for the Post office around 2 pm. By 3:30 when we were still sitting in the customs office, we finally asked the two elders to go to the bank for us before it closed at 4. We waited for over an hour while the duty fees were determined for three boxes. :-/   Then we had to go back to the first building to collect the last parcel.    Christmas time ought to be a blast.....

This was the highlight of the day...

This sign was taped to the desk in the customs office.  Guess they don't want the building to smell bad when they come in on Mondays. :)