Africa Moment # 6

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Okay, so you know how in the States, if someone sends you a package, you get a little piece of paper as a notice on your door or in your mailbox; then you go to the post office or DHL, UPS or Fed Ex office, Greyhound Bus Station, Airline office, or wherever, and you give them the piece of paper, maybe present some ID and they give you the package and you go home? Humm....let me tell you how you pick up a package in Dakar...

The air freight office calls and tells you they have received a package for you. You get in your car to drive to the airport. Now, if you live on the east side of town, you would normally take the autoroute north and drive about 5 minutes and exit on the road to the airport. However, if you are in Dakar, you will find that every morning, if you try to take the autoroute north, the police block all of the north bound traffic to permit all lanes of traffic to flow into town (south). So, if you need to go north, you have to go west all the way to the other side of Dakar, then turn north on the VDN which curves around to the east and dumps you out on the autoroute about 1 km north of where you tried to get on in the first place!! Then, you drive about 1 minute and exit on the airport road. First, challenge complete.

Second challenge is that you now have to locate the freight office, which is not exactly at the airport and is only marked once you enter the building, so there is no evidence of the South African Airways Freight Office from the road. Fortunately for me, when I happened to ask where the office was, I was assisted by a “Transiteur” whose services I did not know I would desperately need at the time I simply asked for directions.

The first place you go is the freight office where they basically strip search you and seize your ID so you can go into the administrative office and pay a ridiculous sum of money to retrieve things you already own. Second step is the admin office; where you pay a fee of 20% of the declared value of your goods, which you can’t fudge because the shipper lists it on the packing bill, and 15 cfa per kg of baggage. I paid about US $44.00 to get a PAPER that says I have been sent a package.

After you get the paper, you go to the “Bureau du Declaration” which is up the road and hidden in some pre-fab type buildings; also not marked. At this office, nice people explain to you that there are two processes for picking up baggage; the process that will take the whole day, or you can opt for ‘an arrangement’ which means they will give you some papers which hopefully will find favor with customs and prevent them from charging you again for goods you already own and will hopefully get you through the process in a few hours. You are not told at this time how much this ‘arrangement’ will cost you.

Then you go to customs which is, of course, next door to the freight office. You go through a reception area where a guy stamps all over your papers and then you wait in line to go into the big boss’ office. It is a bit intimidating, but once you get in there you don’t want to leave because it is air conditioned! It is about 1000 degrees here now! He was a nice guy, was very lighthearted and we were able to joke a bit. I just got my hair braided for the first time and that kind of broke the ice about my being a Senegalese instead of a foreigner; and I said, “Nationals don’t have to pay customs, do they?” So, he let me go with no customs fees.

Then, you take the papers with the chief’s stamp to a ‘customs post’ which is inside the same building as the freight office and two doors down. On the way, some guy in the parking lot chases you down and you pay $10. for two pieces of paper each marked 2500cfa (about five bucks). At this point, you have no idea what these are for or why you must pay them.

From there, you get an officer who takes you into the warehouse of the freight office. Each time you go in there, you have to surrender your ID and get a visitor’s badge. Each time you leave you have to give it back; it is not like they don’t know you’ll be back 5 times before you ever get your goods! But, nonetheless, you have to go through the process each time.

So, once in the warehouse, the Transporteur finds a porter, whom you pay about US $2. to open all the packages for customs inspection. The officer from the customs post, digs around in all your stuff, and takes something out as a ‘sample item’ to show the boss. You leave all your stuff out everywhere and go back to the customs boss, passing through the reception step again. Back in the A/C, you get the final stamp of customs approval.

Once that is done, you pass to another office in the same building where you give up one of the pieces of paper you paid five bucks for and in exchange you get a ‘Declaration d’élevément special’. I still don’t know what that did for us.

Now you go back to the “Bureau du Déclaration” where you negotiate your ‘arrangement’. Because I didn’t have to pay customs I was asked to pay 40,000 cfa, about $80.00 to get my own papers and stationary supplies for which I paid about $150.00! So, I told her I didn’t have that much money and she said, “Well, how much do you have?” I negotiated her down to 20,000 ($40.) and she gave me a somewhat ‘generic receipt’ from a receipt book. At this point I thought it was over and I could actually get my hands on my stuff….

Oh no, not so! Now you have to go to the ‘Brigade Commerciale des Duanes”. In this office, they stamped the receipt for the other 5 bucks, but wouldn’t give it back to me for my records. He just looked at the ‘Transiteur” and sneered and mocked the fact that I needed a receipt, then he put his feet up on his desk and started reading the Quaran. At that point I began to wonder if the Quaran says anything about good and bad manners! This was in the reception area. In the main office, I could hear some guy screaming at the top of his lungs; I was afraid to go in there, but the Transiteur made me. When I walked in, a bunch of folks were exiting looking pretty worn out. Then I saw a picture calendar of Jesus on the wall and the boss was wearing a cross. He looked at the papers and asked if I was “Reverend Danielle”. I said, “yes” and then he asked me for materials. I said, “What kind of materials?” He wanted Christian tracts and told me that I should not go anywhere without them. I told him he was right, and I would consider his advice; all the while I was thinking he might want to drop a few on the desk of the dude with the bad attitude in the front office; maybe something on the Fruits of the Spirit! Well, we enjoyed a little chat; he took some papers and stamped others and sent me on my way.

Back to the freight office; ID; visitor’s badge. To the warehouse to see my bags put on a trolley by the same porter who had previously assisted me by completely tearing up the packaging. Then I had to go to the “Brigade de la Sortie” for another stamp. By this time my $44. shipping papers had more stamps than my passport! Then to the reception where I kept surrendering and receiving the visitor’s badge; but this time I had to sign the log of my visit and testify that I received my packages in good condition (mind you, I haven’t had the opportunity to examine them or their contents).

And finally, out come my bags on a trolley like angels descending from heaven; I am sure I heard a round of The Alleluia Chorus and maybe even felt the tiniest tear forming in the corner of my eye. Who can be as proud as one who has accomplished the immense task of retrieving a package through air freight in Dakar?

Once I had baggage in hand, I paid the Transporteur 20 bucks and just because I am a glutton for punishment (and had hopes that I might do some internet shopping), I asked what the process was for receiving packages via DHL. He pointed across the street. It is essentially the same as SAA Air Freight, but the freight office is in a different building.
I dropped him off where I found him.

The most important lessons learnt were these: do not, at any cost have anything shipped to you in Dakar, and two, if you do happen to fall into the misfortune of having to collect packages, you can hire a Transporteur to do the whole thing for you! You tell the guy who calls you to ask “Papandao” to do it for you and you stay home in your air conditioning and wait for his call (and his bill of course).

I share this Africa Moment with you to not only boast of my amazing accomplishment, but also to let those of you who wanted to support the Children’s Church with goods and supplies know not to send me anything! If you’d like to offer support, just send the money. I will likely pay as much as the value of what you send in taxes, customs and “arrangements” as the cost of whatever you are sending!

So there you have it; Africa Moment number 6; a task in a day of a life in Dakar! It took about 3 ½ hours by the way. The whole thing reminded me of the exercise we did in Public Health school, 17 steps to using a condom...who knew? God Bless.

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