Packages

For those of you interested in sending letters or packages, I can now receive them more directly if you send them to my permanent site in Mariental rather than to the Peace Corps HQ in Windhoek. Here's the address:

Lindsay McAuely
PO Box 908
Mariental, Namibia
Africa, 9000

Packages take anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months to arrive (3 months if it's really big and ends up on a boat).

Here are some tips on how to send it:
*Make sure you write Africa in the address because some PCV's mail was going to Burma.
*Don't declare exactly what's in the box, particularly if it's an item worth stealing. The mail goes through Johannesburg before it get here and it very likely to be riffled through.
*It less likely to be opened if the address is written in red ink and religious notes like Bible verses are scrawled on the outside.
*label it sister Lindsay, so they think I'm clergy
*If you feel so inclined, it also helps if you pack the top of the box with feminine products (tampons, pads,ect.) so that the thief will open the box and likely close it again right away thinking it's not of interest to him.

Some suggestions of what to send:
*letters, newspaper, magazine clippings from home that I can use to decorate my house.
*ground coffee (it's all instant here, and thanks to Peet's I'm now an coffee snob).
*If you're going to send candy, I like gummy bears, m&m's, skittles, dots, dark chocolate, swedish fish, pay days, but I'd be happy with anything
*If you'd like to go the healthier snack route, I like dried fruit (cranberries, apricots, mangos), nuts, and granola.
*music
*movies
*books (this is a great chance to get me to read you favorite book and perhaps understand you a little bit better.)
*inexpensive bracelets or some token of the US that I can give to my new friends.

For the most part, I can get everything I need here. No need to send toilettries or anything like that. There's no Target here or anything like that, but I suddenly don't need as much as I used to.