Obtaining a Beef Permit

Remember when I said I finally got a mailing address and could receive mail?  I take it back.  Please do NOT send me mail.  If you decide to risk it and send me anything, I would recommend you send something small, that if I never receive it I won’t be upset, and neither will you.  If you are brave enough to send me something I hope it’s nothing with an expiration date.  My boyfriend sent me a postcard from Namibia, you know, the country right next door?  He sent it on October 23^rd.  I got it today.  Nothing like 50 days to receive a postcard.  If it had been a Christmas card I probably wouldn’t have received it until Easter.

If you really love me (Don’t worry, it will NOT hurt my feelings at all if no one loves me.  In fact if the roles were reversed I wouldn’t love me either.) and decide to send me a box you MUST have it tracked.  The biggest reason for tracking packages is because there is a high likelihood that customs will seize the package.  I’ve had two packages sent to me and customs seized both.  But at least if the package is tracked than the shipping company (normally Fed Ex) will contact me and tell me what hoops I need to jump through in order to get the package.

Recently my amazing graduate students sent me a package.  Once it actually arrived in Botswana it only took 13 days, three trips to two different offices, seven phone calls, and a slight decrease in my sanity to receive it.  When you send packages to Botswana you are required to list the full contents of the box on the customs declaration paperwork.  In my package there were a couple of t-shirts, a mouse pad, a few personal necessities I can’t buy here, and some beef jerky.  In a country where one of our primary exports is beef, customs threw a fit when they saw beef jerky listed.

Since I was “importing beef” I was required to go to the Ministry of Agriculture to obtain permission.  Despite the fact this was for personal consumption with no intent to sell, I still had to get approval.  I showed up to the Ministry to find about a dozen men all dressed in safari khaki waiting to talk to the one office clerk who was processing applications.  Being adorable, and obviously out of place, I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with one of them.  It turns out they were all cattle ranchers and being that we live in a pretty small country, they all knew one another, which was why they welcomed making a new friend.  Since I had no idea what half the questions on the application meant, one of the ranchers helped me fill it out.  Then I had to go through a line of questioning.  Here was the conversation:

Clerk: We don’t import beef into Botswana.  What is this you want to bring in? What is beef jerky?
Kelly: It is the same as biltong (the name for beef jerky here in Botswana, but here it’s pretty gross).
Clerk: Why don’t you just eat the biltong we have here?
Kelly: Ummm… Here’s the problem, customs has my box and they need approval for the beef jerky, otherwise they won’t give me anything in the box.  Can you please approve the permit?  I’m not going to sell it; I’m only going to eat it myself.
Clerk: Well, how much beef jerky do you want approval for?
Kelly: One kilo.
Clerk: One thousand kilos….
Kelly: No, no, just one kilo. (clerk looks at me quizzically)
Clerk: One kilo? (looks at everyone else in the room and they ALL collectively laugh)
Kelly: Yes, as in, the same amount of food I will probably cook for dinner tonight.
Clerk: Well, this is a lot of work for one kilo of beef jerky. 

When he said that all I could think to myself was, EVERYTHING in Botswana is a LOT OF WORK!!  Need a faculty ID on campus?  That takes two weeks and countless visits to the same office.  Need to have a meeting?  Plan to spend your entire day there because no one will show up on time and then they will break for tea, so they can’t be rushed.  Need your residence permit? You will get it the last possible day you are legally in the country about an hour before they decide to deport you.

Clerk: Ok, I will process the paperwork.  You can come back in the morning to pick it up.

The following morning I excitedly woke up and returned to the Ministry to collect the permit.  Guess what happened when I got there.  That’s right, no permit.  I had to see a second person who questioned me and then informed me they don’t grant permits for fewer than 10 kilos of beef.

Kelly: Ok, then can I please have a beef permit for 10 kilos?
Ministry Director: No.

After another thirty minute inquisition the Ministry Director wrote me a note stating that I had permission to import the beef jerky.

 

I love Africa. There is no such thing as a dull moment here.  And in the end, my beef jerky sure was good.

Navigating Gaborone Without a Map or Street Signs

 About five years ago my sister got married in Hawaii.  She and her fiancé were living in Honolulu at the time, and rather than return to Baltimore (her hometown) for the wedding, they decided the guests should come to them.  The wedding took place between Christmas and New Year’s so my parents, brother and I made the trip out for both the holidays and the wedding.

One night we were in downtown Honolulu window shopping.  I specify window shopping because the stores there are equivalent to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills: Louis Vuitton, Tiffany’s, Gucci, Chanel, etc. All of a sudden there was an electrical storm and the entire island went dark.  Now, if this were to happen in say, Philadelphia, this would be a minor inconvenience because the city could essentially tap into power grids from surrounding areas, like Baltimore or New York. But when the power on an island goes out there is nowhere from which to “borrow” power.

December is high season in Hawaii, and everyone was enjoying the holiday shopping frenzy, so the mass of people frantically trying to exit this crowded area with no streetlights, traffic lights, store lights, etc. was chaotic, to say the least.  The four of us returned to our car where I took the driver’s seat.  My dad pulled out a paper map and began giving me directions back to our hotel with the use of a pocket-sized flashlight.  (He’s an engineer, and a former Boy Scout, so he is always prepared withtools you would never expect to need.)  It took about an hour, but I would suspect that had we not had a hard-copy map it would have taken considerably longer.  (For the curious out there, when we arrived back at our hotel we were given glow sticks to illuminate the path back to our rooms and then slept with the doors open because it was so hot.  It took almost 48 hours to get the majority of the island back on line.)

I was reminded of this story the other day when I was trying to give someone directions to my house.  Very few streets here have names.  And even if they do, chances are people don’t know them.  There are almost no posted street signs and maps are hard to come by.  Given this, you may be curious as to how the Post Office delivers our mail.  Simple answer: they don’t.  In the U.S. the Post Office has been raising prices, eliminating services, and cutting their hours/days of operations each year.  Here in Botswana, we seem to be going on the opposite direction.  I went to a speech by the Post Master General recently who said within the next two years everyone in Botswana will have a physical street address and will have their mail delivered directly to their door.  I wonder if that means Botswana will start publishing maps with accurate street names listed as well?

The good news is, I finally received my first piece of mail yesterday.  So, if you would like, you are welcome to send me stuff.  In reality I don’t expect anyone to send me anything, except maybe my parents, but just in case, here is my address:

Kelly Phelan

Faculty of Business
Private Bag UB00701
Gaborone, Botswana

Also, I will be sending out my Christmas cards shortly as it takes about one month to get anything here/there, so if you would like an African Xmas card leave your address in the comments below or send me an email: kelly.phelan@ttu.edu.