Freighting heavy stuff to Ethiopia

June 16, 2010 6:59 AM

What's the most reliable and inexpensive way of freighting to Addis Ababa from Europe? I am sending books to a library & they obviously weigh a lot.

I am donating a number of textbooks to an Ethiopian university - they are individually heavy and the parcel(s) will be many Kg. Time delay is not an issue, but reliability is. After that, cost is the consideration.

posted by rogerdboyle to Travel & Transportation around Ethiopia (3 answers total)

This doesn't answer your question, but please ensure that the books that you're sending are actually wanted and useful.

In a developing country that I spend time in, I see a lot of these donations of books that aren't used in the classroom, aren't references that people need, and (especially) are redundant to what already is in the library.
posted by k8t at 7:55 AM on June 16, 2010

If you don't get any good answers here, maybe you could ask the International Book Project for suggestions. They're based in the USA but might have useful information for shipping from Europe.

The US Postal Service has a fairly obscure service called an M bag, a large canvas bag for sending a whole lotta mail to one address fairly cheaply, albeit very slowly. It's good for sending books - I imagine that other countries have similar options but I have no idea what they'd be called. Try asking at your local post office.
posted by Quietgal at 8:32 AM on June 16, 2010

The Lubuto Library Project has experience in this area. You might try contacting them.
posted by orrnyereg at 9:07 AM on June 16, 2010