package!

The universe and I have never been great pals. She seldom listens to my pleas regarding red robots; hardly ever convinces professors to extend deadlines and most certainly has never been a supporter of my thin campaign. While I wouldn’t call our relationship toxic, it is most definitely not a very generous one and so you can imagine my surprise when I got up this morning to find the package my parents had sent from South Africa, at the foot of my bed.

There’d been talk about this package from mid-August and for the fortnight that followed, I received daily messages from my parents enquiring what I’d like from home as one of their friends was returning to India at the beginning of September and he had offered to post a package from them. Having been here barely a month, and very into the whole ‘when in Breswana’ buzz, I kept ignoring their questions and insisted that I didn’t need anything.

They were persistent and once I realised they were going to send a package irrespective of whether I wanted anything or not and that the current contents of the package seemed solely medical, I caved and asked for some couscous and one of my warmer pajama pants that I’d left at home for fear of being judged on the polka dots. As ramadaan came to an end, I began to realise that I had significantly underestimated the extent of my snacking habits and so when my aunt messaged to ask if there was anything else I’d like, I didn’t even pretend politeness and replied with requests for several edible snacks, a carefully calculated time later, so as to not seem over keen.

Due a series of unfortunate events, the package always ended up at the required destination a day later than it needed to and so for the last two weeks I have been alternating between completely dismissing its arrival and making mental lists of things I should have included in my list and with two days to spare before driving myself crazy, it finally arrived.

Great anticipation and large amounts of duct tape are not a good combination, I have realised and after several failed attempts at getting the box opened, I almost cut of my thumb trying to stab a hole through the tape. It finally tore open and the first thing I saw was a box of energy drink sachets; sweet, I thought. I maintained the excitement when I got to the mosquito bands and I even feigned enthusiasm at the bottle of sulphur tablets, despite having no idea what they were meant to be for, but by the time I reached the second bottle of the weird sulphur tablets, my heart started to sink and just as I was about to take the entire box and donate it to the village’s dispensary, I saw the couscous. Then the dried mangos, the Cadbury slabs, the guava rolls, the sweets from heaven packet filled with my favourite candy, the SOCKS, polka pajama pants and by time I got to the packet of princess gums, I hastily shut the box for fear of excitement overdose.

It sounds dramatic and really weird to have heart palpitations over candy, couscous and socks but then I guess that weird is a largely subjective term which becomes dramatically skewed after 70 days of being away from brightly lit, multiple aisled grocery stores. And while I doubt the contents are going to last more than 4 days at the rate I am consuming them, I have eternal love for my parents, sisters, aunt and Nabila.

I have also decided to believe that the universe, happy with my largely organic life, water conversation, electricity reduction and pollution eradiation over the past two months, decided it was time to ease up and in light of the perfect timing in the arrival of the package, I am largely optimistic about our relationship going forward.