Logistics R Us!

I’ve discovered that one of the things about travelling is the inevitability of requests, often fairly last minute, to transport something from A to B, or to act as personal shopper, buying something on behalf of somebody. I’ve availed myself of this opportunity of hand carries every time I distribute a newsletter. “Could you post these for me please?” being a request 3 or more times a year to those I’ve found out are travelling to the UK and US. Always in stamped and addressed envelopes of course! Indeed, knowing that someone would be travelling has at times been the incentive to knuckle down and get something written.
It can be amazing how word gets around that you’ll be going from A to B, and then back to A again. There’s always been a certain amount, but ‘Hollis Logistics Services’ seems to have entered into a new scale of operation in recent trips!

Flying Nairobi to London in March – In addition to my own luggage, I had:-
§  A small case for a friend about to leave Kenya, and therefore moving some of her possessions to the UK;
§  A large bag of books, games and clothes for friends who left a year ago, and who still have some of their things in Nairobi;
§  A passport, complete with renewed Kenya work permit for a colleague currently on furlough in the UK;
§  A wedding present for a friend of friends;
§  A birthday present for a friend of those same friends.

Flying London to Nairobi in April –
§  A (large) doorbell for friends (!);
§  3 boxes of books for a work colleague, 2 of which I subsequently took to Yaounde, Cameroon;
§  Razor cartridges for a friend (who when I last him, still hadn’t used them!);
§  DVDs for friends in the DRC;
§  Assortment of birthday presents for members of one family.

And then you get the really roundabout ones. Some items for a family in Dar es Salam, Tanzania from our UK head office. Not that I was going to be going to Dar, but I was going to Yaounde, and at those same meetings in Yaounde was someone from Dar! So, they finally reached their destination having travelled from the UK to Nairobi to Yaounde to Dar!

It’s just as well that we get a 2 bag allowance between Nairobi and London! I’m reckoning that any of us working with SIL would do very well if we set up our own logistics business!

Bags 'couriered' to the UK!

(I’m writing this on a plane from Nairobi to Dakar, and am in the amazing position of having got off pretty much scot-free this time on the packhorse front!)