My Boyfriend Lives In Kenya

Sorry for missing this question from a few months ago, but here it is:
Hey! I hope all is going well back home. I’m writing because I’ve a big question that I’m sure that you could solve… I’m trying to send a package to my friend who is doing his volunteer service at Port Victoria, Kenya.

So, I’m wondering if you know any reliable company to send it? Some people had said to me to use DHL, but I’ll love to hear if you have any tips that could help me to send it in a safer way.

It’s pretty sad that people normally recommend you to not even try to do it.

My answer:

Okay, so here’s the thing–you can send packages but there is no real guarantee they will arrive.  For the most part though, most of the packages that were sent to my boyfriend either from me, or his family made it through. We heard somewhere that it is helpful to write religious messages (regardless of your personal beliefs) on the envelopes to discourage stealing or opening of them like “God rewards those who don’t sin, God is watching you, etc.” or even address it to Father/Sister (Insert Volunteer’s name).  Kind of awful, but I did write messages like that on most of the packages that I sent.

Also, I made a concerted effort to only send things that would fit in larger envelopes–I really tried to avoid boxes of stuff. I also only sent the bulky envelopes International Priority Mail BUT I would not use the U.S.P.S. packaging at all. I wanted to make the package seem as plain and uninteresting as possible. One time when I mailed a large envelope, the postal lady actually was getting annoyed with me, because I refused to use the U.S.P.S. flat-rate envelope that would have been cheaper for me to use than my own plain envelope. Good news is that I paid a couple extra bucks to use my non-fancy envelope and my boyfriend got his package.

I never used DHL so I’m not sure, but it makes sense that a private company might be more reliable than a government run institution, but you never know. Good luck!