Our friends are missionaries in Kosovo. This is a small and new country that used to be a part of Serbia some years ago. Also, Serbia used to be a part of Yugoslavia until 1990-something. I am quite terrible in Balkan geography and history. Anyway, our friends live there somewhere in a village with their two little children. Peter is three and Rebeka is just one year old. It is hard to imagine their life there as it is quite different from the luxuries (like running water and electricity all day long) what we are used to, but sometimes - if the power is on - they can blog, write e-mails and use Facebook. So we know a little about what is going on there. My friend expressed her concern about the education there (she has never thought about homeschooling) and so some of us here got an idea.
Some people collected money and I was honoured with the task of putting together some workbooks, books and educational DVDs for the children of out missionary friends. I had so much fun doing that, shopping for books is the best sort of shopping ever. So we filled a box and went to the post office.
After I had painstakingly filled several customs forms, we wanted to pay for sending and have it done. The lady at the counter searched a long time for the prices and finally said: "I'm sorry, this country does not exist. You cannot send this package from Estonia." Imagine. The price list has all possible countries, including places like Kiribati and the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, but no Kosovo. We argued a bit, until the lady agreed to phone her boss or someone like that. The phone call gave us hope that they will sort it out by tomorrow.
If we can, we would love to visit our friends in Country That Does Not Exist. Maybe we can do it one day. The kids could tell all their friends in preschool and anywhere else that they have visited such an exotic place - let the others brag about Tenerife and Turkey, we have been to the country that even the Post Office has no idea about!
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2 comments:
That is crazy! Even I know about Kosovo!
It turned our that Kosovo has no international postal service or whatever that should be called. So every package must be sent through Albania and that was what we had written in big block letters on the box, but the lady behind the counter had never heard about such possibility so she thought that Kosovo does not exist! And some people say that Americans are dumb and Europeans are smart! I am ashamed for this lady.
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