Once again, my many thanks to the US Embassy of Panama! As always, they were so gracious and helpful!
Some of you have heard of My Box Saga. Basically, I shipped 4 boxes to the State Department in Washington, DC, before I left. The boxes were to be put in the Diplomatic Pouch and carried to Panama. They included books donated from personal professional libraries (thank you, Elisa Miller and Christopher LaRoche!) and by Rosenfeld Media (thank you, Lou!) as well as books I bought for UTP's burgeoning HCI program. They were lovingly packed and shipped from the Post Office using media rate.
Perhaps that was the mistake.
Although the boxes were trackable, and despite being well wrapped, one of them self-destructed (or so we are lead to believe by the PO). David got the top back - seemingly cut off of a box - with a note saying the box was not trackable. It's so frustrating!
But the word came last week that 2 of the remaining 3 boxes had arrived!
Yippee! Hooray! Huzzah!
It took me until today to go get them - and only then thanks (once again) to the woman-who-moves-mountains-and-has-a-heart-of-gold. You guessed right - Elba!
Elba picked me up and drove over to Clayton where the Embassy is located. We were a bit concerned because I hadn't been able to reach either Sarah Ferguson or Dalys Degracia by phone during the trip. Turns out, we arrived at the Embassy during the Cultural Affairs section's staff meeting, but thankfully, wonderful Dalys ducked out, and came down to the guardhouse with the books. She's such a great person - and this kindness was so appreciated!
So we happily made our way back to UTP.
The elevator in Building 3 which houses our department is now broken as of last Friday, which means that we'll get into shape I guess, but which made it mighty inconvenient today trying to get the boxes up to the Panamanian 2nd/American 3rd floor. Luckily, Elba snagged one of her students who bounded up the 2 flights of stairs effortlessly. And another colleague took my briefcase up for me. Me, I huffed and puffed, but made it upstairs without stopping.
And so now, thanks to Elba, Dalys, and our "bearers", we now have a set of books, including all of the Rosenfeld Media books plus books from each of the private collections. The labels haven't come yet, and I still have to buy a bookcase, but soon, we will actually have an HCI/UX library!
Elisa, Christopher, and Lou: Thank you so much for these generous contributions. I can guarantee they will be used well by our students.
