We lived for six years in Tanzania, and one of the sources of joy and comedy was the bizarre designs which found their way on to the country's stamps. They were lively and colourful, but had a strange disconnection from Tanzanian life.

I imagined some European rep selling the postmaster a series of stamps, rejected in his own country, and now for sale at a cut-down price. A few Swahili words added, and there I was putting a picture of a high-tech racing bike, suitable for the perfect tarmac of the Tour de France, on a letter from a country where the only bikes that survived the rigours of African life were Chinese-made sit-up-and-begs, often carrying sacks of charcoal or transporting people to hospital.

One series of stamps featured sea creatures; one was of a shark. The Swahili for a shark is papa, the same word used by the Catholic church to translate "Pope". I imagined the Rev Ian Paisley condoning the analogy with gleeful anger. In Tanzania, the word-play was amusing to both Catholic and Protestant. Another in the series was a picture of a walrus perched on an iceberg, though neither icebergs or walruses are common sights in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

Then came the change. Local artists were commissioned to illustrate their stamps with truly Tanzanian images. Out came a series of traditional hunting methods. The lower denominations were fine - bows and arrows, spears and sling shot - but I did wonder how long assault rifles had been traditional hunting weapons.

Nothing, however, prepared us for the commemorative stamps for the Olympic Games. Tanzania has no Olympic tradition; unlike its northern neighbour, Kenya, it has no running heroes. The games were not covered on television, but, for most Tanzanians, the abiding image must be of the great Olympic sport of darts. The picture on the stamp was of two overweight men propping up a bar as another, even less fit individual, was taking aim with his fifth dart.

Surreal art had found a home on Tanzanian stamps. If you told Tanzanians about the skeleton and the ski jump, they would nod wisely and know you were making it all up because they know Olympics is synonymous with darts. Things and events which are so real to us are mere fantasy to others.

Then, one day, I had the shock of my stamp-buying life. There was a series so breathtakingly real that, on receiving them, I stood in the post office for five minutes studying them. In 1996 a passenger ferry, the SS Bukoba, capsized and sank in Lake Victoria on her way from Tanzania to Uganda. The loss of life was huge, and the pictures of the overturned hull were broadcast all over the world. These stamps, issued a year or so later, commemorated the disaster.

I don't know if there will be a commemorative stamp for September 11. If there is, I guess it will show the heroics of the fire-fighters, or simply be an American flag with a black border. I feel even these are unlikely, but if they are printed, they will proclaim hope over despair. The images in front of me held no such hope. The picture was of regular lines of bumps on the ground, most covered in cloths. Among the lumps were people walking and standing. One was bending down and pulling back a cover. The caption read, "SS Bukoba disaster: dead body identification."

I know how in touch Tanzanians are with death. Everyone has lost a brother or sister, a son or a daughter. They live with death in a way we cannot imagine. Working now in England as a vicar, I frequently find that people in their 20s and 30s have never been to a funeral, and have rarely seen a dead body. It is not that death frightens people, rather that they are so far removed from it that they cannot contemplate it.

In Africa, people fear death, they know its power, but they live with it. They cry, sing and laugh with deeper resonance and fully embrace the fragility of life. Here, young people are taking risks - smoking, drugs, riding superbikes and taking the chance of Aids - because society tells them death does not exist.

One of the most popular poems for funerals contains the lines, "Death is nothing at all". I want to shout, "Yes, it is, it is real!". That is what that stamp did to me. Death is real. For the average Tanzanian, racing bikes, frozen hippos and even the Olympic Games itself may not exist except on stamps. But who is living in fantasy land, them or us?

For moments - such as September 11 or the death of Princess Diana - we break into reality. But soon the myth of invincibility returns. During the whole of the Afghan campaign, I heard of one American soldier dying in action. And why was that news? Because the myth of eternal life has returned and he was not expected to die.

Five months on, and we are beginning, once again, to forget that people die - and that includes us. Only those who mourn personally for family and friends will find that September 11 changes everything, The rest of us will block out reality and live in fantasy. In doing so, we are only half alive, for the knowledge of death, however painful, gives value to life.

Jesus said that those who mourn will be happy; I am beginning to see that he might be right.

The Rev Canon Phil Groves is a vicar in the Melton Mowbray team ministry, Leicestershire, and canon of the diocese of Mpwapwa, Tanzania.

Phil Groves, The Guardian, UK

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