Room 29 and three quarters

My address in Nepal is:

Mordechai Treiger
Nyayik Sansar
PO Box 20927
Kathmandu, Nepal
014-672854

I share this not because I expect anyone to send me letters but because it contains something you don’t typically see in an American address: a phone number. In Nepal, there is no package delivery. Instead, when someone sends you a parcel from abroad, the post office gives you a call to let you know you can come pick it up.

So it was that this past Thursday that Tevel b’Tzedek (Nepali: Nyayik Sansar) received such a call alerting them that a package had arrived for Mordechai Treiger, and that he should come pick it up by 2:30 or else it might get damaged or lost. It was already half past noon.

Furthermore, the post office reported, the precise contents of the package in question were known, and Mr. Treiger should be prepared to pay a rather sizable customs charge if he was interested in leaving the post office with his parcel. This last bit of information was particularly frustrating, as my camera would have entered the country duty-free, in my backpack, had Sony not been totally incompetent. (For details, see the ‘About’ tab above.)

Typically, when volunteers need to complete some complex task in Nepal, Tevel b’Tzedek sends a Nepali staff member along to help communicate. However, there were no staff members available, and the message had made clear that a hammer would come down on my package at precisely 2:30. So I grabbed my passport, jotted down directions, grabbed Hadas without her wallet and without her cigarettes, and ran.

We made it to the main entrance of the post office at exactly 2:30. Fortunately, no line. Unfortunately, wrong building.

We raced around the side in search of Room 29, where the package was rumored to be. Room 29 was nowhere to be found, but Room 28 was, and Room 28 should be close to Room 29. Room 28 contained about 100 packages, and the postmaster there let me examine each one in search of mine. I managed to find many packages that came from Israel, but unfortunately did not manage to find mine – or, fortunately, given the strong scent of urine that inexplicably filled the room. So we continued around the side of the building to Room 32, where we were finally directed to Room 29, which turned out to be down an alleyway, through a door, and at the end of a long, narrow hallway. At long last.

Sort of. Where Room 28 had contained about 100 packages, Room 29 contained about 100,000. The Nepali staffer checked my name against a list of packages he had received that day and, not finding it, sent me across the hall to a room that resembled a loading dock. There I received my first first-hand indication of any sort that my package had indeed arrived: reading my name caused the worker’s face to light up, and he spat out a stream of unintelligible Nepali from which I recognized one word, camera. I was led back to Room 29, where my package was promptly produced from a closet. Success.

Not so fast. From there, we were treated to a whirlwind of Nepali bureaucracy. First stop: passport check. Fortunately, I had recently read Alana’s account of her unsuccessful attempt to retrieve a package in Kathmandu, and had stopped on the way to photocopy my passport. This is apparently a necessary task, but impossible to accomplish once you have arrived at the post office.

Next came the box-opening ceremony. Someone had told me that the determining factor in whether I would pay customs or not was whether the camera being sent to me was new. Unfortunately, the ceremony revealed that the camera arrived in Kathmandu in more or less its original packaging. This was not going to be easy.

Our next stop was the assessor, who sat at a small table punching numbers into his calculator. Though the camera doubtlessly looked brand new, I had actually brought along one secret weapon: my camera equipment, which I pulled out to bolster my case that the camera was indeed old and only looked new because it had been sent in for repairs. OK, the assessor told me, “Old camera price, $200.” He poked at his calculator and turned it around to show me the result: 4000 rupees, or almost $60. No, I insisted, the camera was just sent in for repairs, it’s really an old camera. OK, he said, “Old Old camera price, $100. You are my guest.” As much as I complain about Nepali over-hospitality, I much prefer the Nepalis who give their guests tika to the ones who hand them a bill. But by this point, it was obvious that he really was just being nice. The camera was clearly not an “old, old camera” or even an “old camera” – time to pony up.

Just one problem: the payment counter was next to a big sign that read Cash. Before I left Tevel b’Tzedek, someone had told me the post office would definitely accept credit cards. Uh oh. I started counting out the small bills in my wallet. 1000. 1100. 1200. 1300. 1400. 1450. 1500. 1550. 1600. 1650. 1670. 1690. 1710. 1730. 1740. 1750. 1760. 1770. 1780. 1785 …you…get…the…idea…I…had…a…lot…of…very…small…bills… 1965.

Which, it turned out, was literally the perfect amount. For some reason, instead of the 2000 rupees the assessor had originally calculated, he wrote on the customs form that I owed just 1930, which seems like it had taken, if anything, more effort on his part. The bus home would cost 30 rupees, meaning we had just enough to get the package and get home. Fabulous. We grabbed the receipt and headed for the exit.

Not so fast: one last desk. “10 rupees, postage surcharge.” 35 rupees minus 10 rupees equals 25 rupees, which is less than the 30 rupee bus fare home. I opened my wallet, counted out my 35 rupees, and explained that we needed 30 of them to get home. OK, he said, “bring me the other 5 next time you come by the post office.” If all goes well, that will be never.

Moments after leaving the post office, Kathmandu treated us to a pleasant surprise. A young man lay still on the sidewalk, his head resting on the lap of a friend, red stains covering his shirt, and a blood-soaked formerly-white bandana tied around his head. I may have just suffered from seven months without a camera, paid $45 to ship a new one to Kathmandu, paid $30 in customs, and carried only pennies in my pocket, all through no fault of my own, but, I told myself, at least I wasn’t that guy.