Apologies to the Congo

In one sense it’s difficult to describe the gulf which exists between the way things are done in the Congo and, say, South Africa, or Britain. But it’s also tempting, at times, to exaggerate it if it makes a better story.

I haven’t written about the postal service in Kinshasa, because there isn’t one. I have to write repeated letters to service providers such as medical insurance and credit card companies who promise to send cards by post and who pay no attention to my warnings about the lack of a postal system.

It’s such a contrast with Zambia, for example, where letters never took more than four days to go from Lusaka to Britain or vice versa, and often did it in three. Kenya was almost as good. And in both Lusaka and Nairobi, letters have reached me without the proper address: the best was one sent from the US with the only address being my name and “Lusaka” – no P O Box or even country.

Back to the Congo, there’s a certain satisfaction in saying that there’s no postal service. That’s not to say that there aren’t any post offices in the Congo. There are many: all the main towns have one, typically built by the Belgians and never far from the Town Hall and main church. But alas, the buildings may be there, and you can still make out the lettering on the walls, but that’s all. They are usually ghost offices, without windows or doors, abandoned.

Recently I sent a rude letter to the medical insurance people saying that I hadn’t received my membership card, but that if they were to send it they would have to use a courier service. A few days later I had an email informing me that my cards had been posted, as requested. To which, of course, I replied that they should have read my instructions more carefully: THERE’S NO POSTAL SERVICE. To add impact and emphasise that we are truly living in abnormal conditions, I pointed out that there’s no land line telephone service either.

The statement about there being NO postal service was a bit of exaggeration. Someone we knew had posted a card at the Kinshasa post office (which does have windows and doors, and indeed has recently been painted) and it reached its destination in Britain. Anyway, receiving mail is much harder than sending it because it involves delivery, with associated problems of transport, vague addresses and so on. So, I felt quite confident that there was, indeed, no postal service. Until . . .

A few days ago the office secretary brought me an envelope which had clearly been posted in the US, addressed to me using our office’s street address. It was from the very same medical insurance firm that I had so self righteously scolded for its ignorance about the lack of postal service. “How did this get here?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said, “maybe someone brought it from the US.”

So not only was I sceptical, so was she. I had very good grounds for assuming that it had not come by post. But, to my shame, after a proper examination I must admit that I was definitely wrong. The envelope had been posted – there was not a shadow of doubt about that – in the US, and delivered. And then, just to prove how wrong I was, she who must be obeyed shortly afterwards received a letter at her workplace posted nine months earlier from London. Not a speedy service, to be sure, but definitely a service of sorts.

So, all I can say is: sorry Congo. You’ve got a postal system, at least in parts.