Saturday, February 23, 2008

The Collector Within

I'd sent myself home a package from Namibia in 2005. I don't remember what it was, but I was shedding possessions at the time as I had to carry everything out of my apartment, to Cape Town, then north to Uganda by train and bus. I threw away the box later, but kept the stamps.

When I sent my writing samples from Swakopmund to Amtrak to audition for a gig, it had gone plastered in the same type of wildlife stamps. I thought it would either get me the job, or they would take one look at the packet wrapped in hand-canceled stamps, and call the FBI.

4 comments:

Yasir Khan said...

So what happened? Did you get the Amtrak gig? Or are you in jail?

Marie Javins said...

Hey, you're supposed to click on the link to where I was writing the Amtrak story!

Don said...

You may be interested in this article link below. Canadian woman injured in Africa and our gov't is actually going to help her. Too bad they didn't help a Canadian teacher in Thailand who had a similar accident about a month ago. Many of us weren't happy. maybe they listened!


http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080224/injured_cdn_080224/20080224?hub=TopStories

Amanda Castleman said...

I've started sending myself postcards from abroad – a trick I nabbed from another travel writer (was it you?).

Why should my friends enjoy all the cool stamps?

Plus, they're a pretty addition to the pile-o-notes...