You've got mail...

I’ve had a few interesting encounters with the Peruvian post office, or SerPost, since I’ve been here. One day, I went to mail some postcards (which ended up costing over 2 dollars a piece! Wow! That’s a 6 hours’ wage here - just to mail one!) There are a number of men in uniforms armed with guns all around the place. I paid for my stamps and then was completely confused as I could not find the mailbox ANYWHERE! I finally asked one of the armed men, and he laughed at me and said, “la boca del león” which means the lion’s mouth. Even more confused, I wandered around looking for anything resembling a mailbox with a lion on it, until he guided me toward his decorative thing off to the side. It was a giant unmarked bronzed lion’s head and you drop the letters down the mouth into a cardboard box. Not sure how I missed that.

The second time, I went to pick up a package. After several sets of doors and showing my identification to armed men, I arrived at the back of a 20-person line. 2 hours later… I was still in the line. It was hot and lacked personal space. The same three ladies kept repeatedly trying to cut in front of everyone. Every package had to first be located from the storeroom. I caught a glimpse of the storeroom from time to time – a large room with a religious shrine in the center surrounded by thousands of letters and packages piled in up in bags and on the floors. It looked like pure chaos. (But, the Virgin Mary did create a nice ambiance for the room).

Once you made it to the front of the line and they located the package, you had to sign all these forms, show your passport, give them two copies of your passport (??) and watch someone cut apart the box and take every single thing out to inspect it. (The inspector lady cut her finger in the process so one package left with blood all over it! Then after that, the process was severely slowed because she had to do everything with one hand.) Finally, you sign some more things and off you go with your package! Getting the package home is a whole other adventure- do you risk it getting stolen by taking public transportation, or risk worse things by getting into a cab alone? I took public transit and then bolted the two blocks to my front door… mission accomplished!

*A special thanks to those who have sent me care packages! You are AMAZING!*