'Once upon a Post Office .... or five..!'
By Valentine Marc Nkwame
Arusha town has five Post offices. Now, for the benefit of the new. 'Dot- Com'
generation, Post offices were the stone age versions of Internet cafes, where
people, or maybe dinosaurs, used to go and send their mails.
However, as your grandmother will probably tell you, the mails that were sent
through Post offices used to take at least four weeks before reaching their
destination, but in most cases, these mails would get lost along the way.
Anyway, as I said, this rather dusty and extremely hot town, still keeps a total
of five post offices, God knows why! However, the oldest and almost legendary
one, can be found adjacent to the Clock Tower roundabout.
The second Post Office, which is also believed to be the most >prestigious= one,
is located within the Arusha International Conference Center (AICC) complex,
coincidentally sharing the same floor with a much faster option; the DHL office.
The third, is probably also the most insignificant one, being dug out of an old
building, opposite the Friends Corner junction, along the main Sokoine road. The
Chubby hole of a Post Office hides behind a mountain of local hawkers' wares.
The fourth Post Office happens to be the smallest one and is located right at
entrance gate, of the Arusha Technical college (TCA) along Nairobi road, in
Ngarenaro area .... At least, it was still there by the time we went to press.
The Meru Post Office is the newest, biggest and due to the fact that, it also
houses the European Money Transfer System, this is probably the busiest, but on
the other hand, it is also the one with the most number of mail boxes that are
still yet to be rented.
Not surprising! I mean, nobody with a sane mind would like to hire a mailbox
with numbers reaching up to seven figures, unless of course, if the idea is only
to confuse anybody who would be patient enough, to mail letters through that
address.
In the old days, the Post Office and the local land line Phone Company (TTCL)
used to be a single company, offering both Mail and Telephone Services. However,
TTCL later realized that they were stuck with a lemon and thus decided to ditch
the Post Office long before it became too big a burden! Wise decision (Maybe).
That however was 1993, a year later, the first Mobile phone service provider,
landed in Tanzania. TTCL was still unperturbed then, but as time went by, more
Cellular phone companies went into business here and before long, TTCL became
the ultimate sour lemon.
Never mind, that is the story of the Post Office where we used to queue every
December, while waiting to send Christmas Cards. Then, the PO would put up
notices warning everybody who would care to read that, the deadline for sending
those cards was on '15th of December!'
Anyway, in 1998 something called ANode Marie!@ started offering a service known
as Email, which was made available through a technology called Internet. It
didn't make sense and got even more confusing when words such as, 'Hotmail,' and
'Yahoo!' were used.
Today however, it is the Post Office that is confusing, nobody, especially the
'Dot-com' generation understands the labor of writing using a pen, buying an
envelope, buying a stamp, then licking the stamp and sticking it to the
envelope.
It gets even more weird when one is compelled to drop the 'letter' into a deep,
dark hole which bears the words; 'Inland Mail,= >International Mail' or 'Air
Mail' then expect it to reach somewhere other than the dungeon floor.
Instead the terms; Hotmail, Yahoo and other words depicting a technologically
advanced Internet based mails are currently as common as the addressing style; 'P.O.
Box,' was, when Ronald Reagan was being sworn into the American presidency.
This is simply because it takes just one second, for an Email to reach whichever
destination on earth, now when compared to the four weeks (equivalent of 11
million seconds) taken by the Snail mail going by the name of Post Office.
Yet despite all that, Arusha is still keeping a total of five Post offices and
only two museums, when are we likely to look back and say: 'Once upon a post
office?'
nkwame@gmail.com
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