{"id":536,"date":"2014-11-14T17:45:03","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T17:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/?p=536"},"modified":"2015-03-14T13:25:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T13:25:45","slug":"south-africa-postal-workers-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/south-africa-postal-workers-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa postal workers strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Never imagined I’d be affected by one of the many strikes that are constantly happening in South Africa, but now a box of my books (“The Mountain School”) are in limbo in a warehouse somewhere, part of the “mountain of mail” that the South African Post Office says they’re sitting on. My books are bound for the store at the Morija Museum in Lesotho, but nothing can get to Lesotho without first getting through the Republic of South Africa.<\/p>\n

South Africans look down on Lesotho, generally. Lesotho is the poor, backward little neighbor up in the mountains. Not that they’re totally misguided in that — look at the coup and assassination attempts and suspensions of parliament happening right now. But still I find it ironic that it’s the inability of a basic utility like the postal service to function in South Africa that is preventing my books from finding their Lesotho destination.<\/p>\n

I sent the box of books from South Lake Tahoe, California. “Departed Post Office September 10, 2014 5:07 pm,” reads the tracking log from the United States Postal Service. The final entry on the log: “Your item is being processed by customs in SOUTH AFRICA at 10:58 am on September 17, 2014.” Today is November 10. Almost two months of being “processed” by customs.<\/p>\n

The South African Post Office is actually in its third month of its strike. Not surprisingly, the post office workers want higher wages. Not surprisingly, the post office has been in the red since 2005 and doesn’t even have the money to pay current wages: the story of postal services everywhere.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>The books did eventually arrive, and in fine condition, around Christmas time.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Never imagined I’d be affected by one of the many strikes that are constantly happening in South Africa, but now a box of my books (“The Mountain School”) are in limbo in a warehouse somewhere, part of the “mountain of mail” that the South African Post Office says they’re sitting on. My books are bound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8huLi-8E","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/the-mountain-school-at-the-morija-museum-store\/","url_meta":{"origin":536,"position":0},"title":"The Mountain School at the Morija Museum Store","author":"Greg Alder","date":"May 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It has been a long and winding road for The Mountain School to get back home, but it has finally landed back in Lesotho at the Museum Store in Morija. This is the store attached to the country's only real museum, and Morija is the town where the country's first\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/the-mountain-school-at-the-morija-museum-store\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-and-the-chinese\/","url_meta":{"origin":536,"position":1},"title":"Lesotho and the Chinese","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In\u00a0The Mountain School\u00a0I told the story of visiting a Chinese-owned shop in a neighboring village called Kolo, where a Mosotho woman got into an argument with the Chinese cashier. Chinese are really the only immigrants in Lesotho and, if I could sum up, I'd say the Basotho grudgingly patronize Chinese\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":614,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-as-an-enclave\/","url_meta":{"origin":536,"position":2},"title":"Lesotho as an enclave","author":"Greg Alder","date":"March 30, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There aren't many countries which are entirely surrounded by a single\u00a0other country, as Lesotho is entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. There's also San Marino within Italy, and then there's Vatican City within Italy too. That's it. Three in the whole world. Nancy Wright teaches political science at\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-as-an-enclave\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":398,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/new-voice-on-the-chinese-in-lesotho\/","url_meta":{"origin":536,"position":3},"title":"New Voice on the Chinese in Lesotho","author":"Greg Alder","date":"May 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"During all my years in Lesotho, I spoke to a Chinese only once. I encountered many Chinese at the shops they own in villages and towns throughout the country, yet I really only conversed with one man who drove his pick-up truck to our school in the countryside one afternoon\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":388,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/what-is-a-bono\/","url_meta":{"origin":536,"position":4},"title":"What is a Bono?","author":"Greg Alder","date":"April 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It caught my eye as it ran across the CNN ticker: \"Madonna, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Bono are some of the celebs pledging to 'save Africa.' But does Africa want them?\" I was on my way to teach a class, so as I continued down the hall I thought\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/what-is-a-bono\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":422,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/questions-discuss\/","url_meta":{"origin":536,"position":5},"title":"Questions. Discuss.","author":"Greg Alder","date":"June 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Below are a dozen prods. Use them to further consider\u00a0what is in\u00a0The Mountain School.\u00a0Share with\u00a0a friend, a book club, a group of students. 1. If judged through most news stories, we get the impression that Africa is two things: a romantic land of wild animals, and a desperate place\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/questions-discuss\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"The_Mountain_School_Cover_thumbnail 15 percent size","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/The_Mountain_School_Cover_thumbnail-15-percent-size-e1362499365205.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":594,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}