Tales of Repatriation

America 101 - My New Address

How many mailing addresses have you had as an adult?

I lived at probably 13 addresses in America since I turned 20. I've had 10 different addresses in Southern California, two in Washington, DC, 1 in New York City, 1 in Cairo, 3 in Nairobi and one in Singapore.

I remember all of them which seems a little strange.

My American addresses are a combination of PO boxes, physical (street) addresses, and a few different expat mail services that receive all USA mail/packages, scan the mail (or open a box if I don't know what's inside), and email the information to me so I can decide if I want to have the mail forwarded, shredded, or recycled.

In Egypt, my personal mail came to the office and it always came open. Any mail at all – be it an envelope, box or other package – was carefully opened and eventually delivered once the postal service had thoroughly reviewed/read/inspected the contents. I'm not quite sure what they were looking for when they opened my mail in those days. I wasn't quite James Bond, yet. J Packages were much more complicated because inevitably people would forget to remove the price tags off of whatever was sent and I ended up being charged a "customs and delivery fee" for things as innocuous as a few shirts.

When I shifted to Kenya, I shared a PO Box (mail does not come to the house) with my business partner. The only time that I asked my Mom to send me a box of stuff from home was when I could not find certain toiletries in the city. I was summoned to the post office when the box arrived (to the special office in downtown Nairobi) and spent 3 hours debating the contents in the box, the amount of time it had been in "storage" (it hadn't), and the "fee" (bribe) I would have to pay to leave with the box.

Mail can be complicated.

I've received so little mail living overseas that I sort of just stopped thinking about what I was missing. I engaged an expat mail service and was good to go for the most part. About 3 years ago, I went to the local post office and got an official box of my own – very fancy. My box was in Karen (a tony suburb outside of Nairobi) and I stopped by to pick the mail. It all felt relatively normal as I'd learned from my singular experience at the downtown office to never send a package via post into Kenya. I think I managed to collect about 80% of the mail that was sent to me – the other 20% was lost forever including my Antarctica postcard to myself (&$^&#%!!).

Anything packages I needed were transported via the incredible "Somali" network. The Somali-Kenyan community is huge in Kenya (they're my peeps) and very savvy business owners. The business leaders devised a system of container sharing (way ahead of their time) and opened up brokerage offices all over the world. I could ship as much Amazon stuff to a NY broker as I wanted and it would get to me, eventually. Just about everyone I knew in Kenya used the Somali system to order everything from books to car parts to basins. The mail couldn't get to me, but my closet organizer could – and that's all that mattered.

I got used to mail not arriving and packages taking several weeks. I also got used to not having an exact street addresses. Most of my addresses have been descriptive in nature – something like, "The Pearl Apartments, on James Gichuru road, around the corner from the petrol station – but before the bus stop". I didn't ever have a proper street address that everyone could just find with GPS. GPS, in fact, once it took off in Kenya, used to describe (and still describes) where to turn or where a particular destination could be found. "Turn left at Tom's burger hut and look for the tire repair center on the right."

And then I moved to Singapore.

Every single address in Singapore is coded in such a way that the address tells me exactly where your house/condo/apartment is located. If you live at Villa Heights, 16-07 Rock St (I'm making that up), I know that you live on the 16th floor, Unit 7, at Villa Heights Condos and the zip code 438493 tells me exactly where – down to the a few meters.

My old address was 5 Jalan Gajus, Singapore, 483493. Type 438493 Singapore into Google now and you'll see my former house. Amazing. GPS became almost dull. I missed the Google Maps descriptive approach to driving.

And while I missed the narrative, I welcomed mail! I could finally receive mail at my home every single day (except Sunday). It never got lost. There was no bribe to pay. It may have gotten wet when the thunderstorms hit, but that was part of the journey.

I'll never forget the first time I dared to order a package from Amazon/USA for delivery to Singapore and it arrived – 4 days later - absent any hassle. It was just left at my doorstep. I didn't spent time describing my whereabouts (in Kenya I became known as the mzungu past Resurrection Garden with the great big dogs – I could live with that, actually) when packages and take-away were being delivered. It was Christmas in March!

I checked the mail box every day in Singapore and got a little thrill every time there was a letter for me. It was nourishment for my soul. My parents got excited because they could finally send me a birthday card without wondering if it would arrive.

Now I'm back in America with all of its endless permutations of delivery. UPS, USPS, Amazon, and a host of others. I can order anything and it shows up. (Yes, it does you jaded Americans. Trust me when I tell you, the USPS and UPS deliver platinum services.) And that's really fun and reassuring and weird.

I now have an official address in America for mail and packages. No more expat mail service.

And I'm tingling. In fact, I'm going to go and check my fancy new UPS store mailbox. It will be empty – but it's a start to my new life in America.