What it means to pay shipping to Morocco

I am writing this blog entry using what very well might be the world's most expensive copy of the software program Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

The story started several weeks ago when I realized that, for reasons I don't want to get into here, it was going to be difficult for me to do all the computer work that my online classes require. T discovered a voice to text computer program called Dragon NaturallySpeaking, but because it comes with a headset and microphone, it has to be ordered online and mailed to you – it can't be purchased and downloaded from the Internet. T ordered the program for me, and we paid a ridiculously high shipping cost. And then we waited.

To make a long and fairly uninteresting story short, what we learned is that when we pay shipping to Morocco (at least through DHL), we are paying to ship the package to Morocco, not to our address in Morocco. After the package got to Rabat, we were told we were going to have to pay even more money to get it to us in Ifrane. After weeks of exchanges between T and representatives of DHL, we finally got our package as far as Fez. Yesterday, we went to Fez for the sole purpose of picking up my software program, which, for some reason, DHL could not possibly get to Ifrane. We also ended up paying a lot of money – whether you measure it in dollars or dirhams– just to get it from DHL.

I'm trying not to be angry about all the time and money it has cost us to get this computer program to our apartment. I'm trying not to be upset that we were charged at least double what we should have been for shipping. I'm trying to treat this as a learning experience. Maybe I'll let you know later how successful my attempts have been.