Postscript
Sometimes bad things turn good. Guatemala’s postal service is so slow, expensive and unreliable that in Guatemala the concept of junk mail is non-existent. El Correo, Guatemala’s postal service, is a Canadian private company with the support of the Canadian Postal Service. El Correo is the result of the infamous recipe prescribed forced onto poor countries: Privatize everything! For better or worse that’s what we got.
El Correo is slow: to receive our telephone invoices printed and mailed in Guatemala City (La Nueva Guatemala) to our P.O. Box in the postal office of El Correo in La Antigua Guatemala can take up to three weeks or more.
El Correo is expensive: to mail a Revue magazine (about the size of the Readers’ Digest) to the U.S. or Canada can cost about Q70/US$9. Post cards about $1 and letters depends on the weight.
El Correo is unreliable: Once I sent myself some post cards from the postal office to our house, which is about 2 miles away, and they never arrived. El cartero, the postman, only delivers once a week or once every two weeks in the communities surrounding La Antigua Guatemala. Because of this we have now a post office box.
But, we get no junk mail. That alone is a fortune. Furthermore, El Correo is reliable for sending and receiving mail and post cards from abroad as long as you have a P.O. Box; even if it is expensive and slow. To send a letter to the U.S. or Canada can take up to three weeks; almost the same time it takes for the invoice mailed in GuateCity to reach La Antigua. El Correo can be inexpensive too, mostly inside Guatemala, since sending a normal letter or post card (20 grams or less) can cost only 20 centavos (Q.0.20/US$0.025). You can download their price list as a PDF file here. But please, don’t expect the tracking service to work, especially in Guatemala.
The Post Card Request Side Note: With the excuse of an experiment and that I would like to know about you and your home town I am requesting a post card from you. I would like to receive a simple hand-written note on a post card, with stamps if at all possible, showing a landmark from your city in my p.o. box. My mailing address is on the Contact the author page. Once you have mailed the post card, please come back the Contact the author page and let me know you have sent it. I will write back to you the moment I receive it and, perhaps, I will send you a hand-written post card in return (it all depends on the how many I receive and how expensive is to send it to you). Come on people, let me know you really like the work I put in this web site through a simple hand-written note on a post card. I will be waiting for your post card!
Credits: This photograph was my wife’s idea and it will appear in the Homenaje (tribute) column of Revista Recrearte in the October edition. Posdata (postscript) was written by Beatriz Zamora as a tribute to the postal service and the hand-written correspondence. It is a great read if you can understand Spanish.
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September 27th, 2007
Pues I have certain fascination with the postal service, my grandfather having worked for the defunct “Dirección General de Correos y Telégrafos” in La Nueva for 40+ years, first as a postman and then administratively. I am an amateur philatelist (yes I am such a geek) and in my last couple of trips decided to send postcards from different places to different people.
In Feb. 06 I tried to do it from Guate (specifically Pana) and the office of El Correo didn’t have stamps! This last Aug. I send some thank you postcards from La Nueva to friends in Europe. I got an e-mail thanking it from a friend in Belgium within a couple of weeks so I guess it worked. I actually had tried it the other way around (Belgium-Guatemala) on the previous month but I don’t think my mom (in La Nueva) had the postcard yet. She did get some from France, so the delivery system was not the problem.
My other experience with transnational postal service was getting my bank statements from Banco de Occidente (RIP, I thought LD would have a mention of it from her Xela years but couldn’t find anything) here in Canada through regular mail, although I don’t know if they used something like trans-express (does it still exist) to take their mail at least to the US and mail it from there. It said something about how they used to deal with their clients.
So, Rudy, we don’t only have the gold and the money, but also control the postal service… and it seems we are immune to the Campero collective… thus it seems we should be saying “would you please prepare to be assimilated, eh?” to the poor little chapines. I will find you a nice postcard or actually send you one of my pictures from Toronto.
Saludos!
September 27th, 2007
I like this photo — the textures of the wall and the metal sign. Love things that smack of age. Great idea with the post card. Now…if I can only remember to send it…
October 1st, 2007
[...] Gerard, Carolyn and Alan for having sent a post card from their home town as I requested in the Postscript entry. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please, do read the [...]
October 1st, 2007
[...] Gerard, Carolyn and Alan for having sent a post card from their home town as I requested in the Postscript entry. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please, do read the [...]
October 10th, 2007
[...] Post cards request update: The first two post cards arrived today at my postal office box. Gerard’s post card from Hyde, England and Carolyn’s from sunny Southern California arrive today. Gerard’s post card was sent on September 29, it arrived to Guatemala City on October 8 and to La Antigua Guatemala on the 10th. Carolyn’s post card was sent on October 1st, it landed in GuateCity on October 6 and it made its way down to La Antigua Guatemala today. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript. [...]
October 18th, 2007
[...] Post cards request update: Four new post cards were found in my post office box on Monday. We received one from Downtown Minneapolis sent on October 1; another from Historic Romeo, Michigan sent on October 3; one more from Owego, New York mailed on October 2; and the last one from Grand Junction, Colorado. The four post cards arrived in GuateCity “La Nueva” on October 9 and it took almost a week to get to “La Antigua”. It is incredible that is takes almost the same time to travel the thousands of miles to get to Guatemala City as it takes to travel the 30 miles that separates La Antigua Guatemala from the capital; no wonder my bills are always late. By the way, my wife and I are enjoying your post cards very much, especially the many different stamps. Please keep them coming! If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript. [...]
October 28th, 2007
[...] Post cards request update: I forgot to mention that on Friday I found four new post cards in the p.o. box. The first Canadian post card I received was sent by Manolo, who, by the way created the post card from his amazing photographs. Next, I had a chance to see the beauty of the gorgeous gothic cathedral of Saint Patrick, in New York City, thanks to Claudia. Carolyn from Minnesota sent a post card of the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (one more word with the árbol root). Last, I’ve got a post card from Cynthia, Michele and Joan from Pennsylvania about Amish children. Needless to say we are delighted with all the post cards and my wife suggested we make an album with all of them. Please keep them coming. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript. [...]
October 29th, 2007
Have you received mine from Connecticut yet????
Becky
November 19th, 2007
No sign of my postcard yet? I sent it from London on 25th October!
November 25th, 2007
Hóla!
Sent you a postcard from Iceland, Reykjavik. Not my home town but I work here this month. Will visit Guatemala and Antigua in January-February.
Endre
Norwegian.
November 27th, 2007
[...] Post cards request update: I forgot to mention that the last set of post cards I receive came from Flor and Sompopo in Atlanta, Georgia; Gail and Diego (age 3) from Long Island and a home-made post card from Mark from onewayphotoblog.com from Southern England. You guys are awesome and I REALLY appreciate all your post card and kind words. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript. [...]
December 6th, 2007
[...] Post cards request update: Today a found several post cards sent by Ann from Montego Bay, Jamaica. Ann was kind enough to send several post cards to compensate for her tardiness, so she says. Ann maintains the very insightful and informative Montego Bay Daily Photo. Just like with books, as much as I take advantage of email, web sites, and blogs, I have a soft spot in may heart for actual really real post cards and letters, so please keep ‘em coming! If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript. [...]
January 3rd, 2008
[...] brewing way up north, heh. See, first they steal our bright minds; then they take our gold and buy out our postal service; they insert strange things into our antigüeño breakfast (bacon they call it); even our money is [...]