letter from bangladesh

Letter from Bangladesh

Rosie Oglesby
Guardian Weekly

Recently I popped out to post a parcel to my family. I left the office at 10am, telling people I'd be back in half an hour or so. But, oh no, in Bangladesh nothing is that simple.

Having exchanged greetings with the man in the post office, I presented him with a medium-sized parcel, neatly wrapped in brown paper. "Please send this to France," I said and pushed it over the counter.

His smile disappeared and was replaced with the ominous head-waggling that is the opening act in the Great Bangladeshi Bureaucracy Show. After a discussion with his colleague, they put what looked like a shoe box wrapped in a tea towel in front of me. "We can't send that. You'll have to wrap it in cotton material, like this one. This is the correct system."

I took a deep breath and prepared to do very civilised battle with the Rangamati postal service. My query as to why parcels had to be wrapped in white cotton was met with more head-waggling.

"But I don't have any cotton fabric and I can't buy any before the post office closes." Looks of consternation, but no head-waggling: progress. I threw the parcel up and down a few times on the counter to demonstrate its sturdiness and pointed out the clearly written address. "To FRANCE," I stressed, as if this might be the magic word. Mr Post Office made placatory hand movements and disappeared.

When he returned, he told me to follow him, still holding my parcel like a bomb. I was shown into the office of the deputy postmaster. He peered suspiciously at my parcel as I explained that I didn't have any cotton to cover it.

"Don't you have any more tape?" My package was already mummified in parcel tape, leaving only a small square for the address.

Slightly desperate now, as it was getting near lunchtime closing, I played my trump card. "It's for my my mother and father. They love Bangladesh and they are waiting for their beautiful presents from Rangamati."

A smile, at last a smile. My appeal to the two pillars of Bangladeshi society - the family and national pride - must have done the trick; my parcel was released. "Well, if you haven't got any more tape, then it'll just have to take its chance like that." And I was allowed to go.

Or so I thought. Instead of being shown back out to the public counter, I was seated at a desk where clerks peered into piles of registers and yawned. As I looked around, I saw other customers seated at desks around the room in varying stages of resignation or decay. I got out my wallet. "What is the postage charge?" Mr Post Office stood up and gave me a look of great indignation. "But no! A dispatch seal is needed." And with a flourish he produced a candle from under the table and lit it.

I wondered if they were going to simplify the whole process by burning my offensive parcel. But instead he selected two luminous green ballpoint pens and proceeded, with great professionalism, to burn them over the candle flame until the ends dripped liquid plastic and expelled fumes into the room. He then made the official Rangamati post office seal by pressing a one taka coin (worth less than one cent) into the melted plastic on the middle of my parcel. I glanced around, but nobody else seemed to be at all worried. He conscientiously branded my parcel 15 times, anywhere there was a gap in the tape. Finally I was allowed to pay my bill, hand over my parcel and escape.

He waved me off cheerfully with invitations to come back again soon. For less than $4 I had not only sent presents to my family, but had also got two hours of free entertainment and mild intoxication by plastic fumes into the bargain. Customer satisfaction, Bangladeshi-style.