A visit to La Poste

A visit to the post office.

Today, I am sending a letter and paying my electrical bill; both which I do at the same place - the Badou Post Office. I prepare myself in the morning before going. In my bag I place the book I’m currently reading; the Volunteer Information Newsletter; a notebook to write down things I remember to do; and my water bottle. Upon walking up to the building I take a preliminary glance into the office in order to register if today I’ll spend 30 min, an hour, or the entire morning waiting for the surly man behind the counter to call me up.

See here’s the thing.  La Poste in Togo is much more than a (wo)man in blue knee-length shorts driving a little white van, depositing mail into a cow shaped mailbox.  Of course you can send your letters and receive your packages. But many Togolese use the post as their primary form of banking and to make money transfers. The Western Union sign outside of a post office has become an ominous sign for me. Normally, there will only be three or four persons (out of twenty or so) there for correspondence-related activity. Otherwise, one is stuck waiting behind the ten or more people that need to send money to Tanti in Lome. Over the course of three months, I’ve learned and have now become practiced in the art of daydreaming. I’ll read for about thirty minutes and then spend the rest of the time imagining how best to usurp the system, i.e. sneak behind the counter and retrieve my mail.  

Since nothing is delivered to residences, I make a weekly trip to the post. You quickly understand that it is of dire need to keep bonne relations with the post officer. We just got a pair of newbies here in Badou that have so far been ill-disposed to make life easier for Kat and me. Our transactions, like getting our mail or sending a letter, take less than five minutes to complete in contrast to the longer process of money transfers. The post man will look over at me, smile, exchange salutations (a little brown-noising on my part) and then he’ll return to his computer screen. I sit back on the bench, slip my book out, and take only occasional glances towards him to remind him that I’m still there although not wanting to hurry him or anything…I’m not pressé.

As a kicker, the Badou post also acts as the electrical company’s office…for the whole of the prefecture.  That is, if you are so lucky (as I was a couple months ago) to want to pay your electrical bill on the same day as everyone else, you might spend the ENTIRE DAY WAITING to pay a bill; man if it made sense to introduce online billing in Togo, I’d make that my primary project. However, to my delight, it has come to my attention that I can simply leave the bill and payment with the guard, walk away, and come back whenever to get my receipt. A little secret that I just started to take advantage of J

Are you keeping count? our lone postman must 1) manage the post (although this is last priority) 2) carry out money transfers 3) act as bank clerk and 4) cashier for the electrical company.

You will always need to bring a good book, just in case.  Around the beginning of every month everyone files in to pay their bill.  This means that all other less-pressing transactions, like sending a lowly letter, settle in at last place on the post office totem pole. I squeeze my way up to the counter only to be asked to come back in two hours. I just need to send a letter, says the whiny voice inside my head. But as with everything in Togo, things eventually do go – “ca va aller, non?” In the meantime, I’ll nurture that lady of personal growth, patience.