Mail Call

We take so much for granted in the United States.  Clean water, television, Wal Mart Superstores and regular mail delivery.

 

I have a mail box here at the university, and it is conveniently located in the building right next to the one I’m staying in.  I have gotten mail, and it works just fine. I open the box, retrieve my mail and do a little happy dance.  If I was only expecting letters, however, I would have missed out on a whole adventure in postal delivery, and would have left here to return, still grumpy that our mail delivery is sometimes less than we would like.  Buck up anti post office crowd, for whatever a stamp costs today, we’re still getting a deal!

Ok.  This post is not an attempt to defend the US Postal Service (no pun intended).  If you know me, you already know where I stand on that issue.   But like many things here, getting your mail, can be, well, complicated.

As I said, I have a mail box here at the Student Village, and mail is delivered Sunday through Thursday, but only letters.  In the housing office here at the Village, there is a dry erase board that lets students know that there is a package waiting for them; it boldly announces, “Your package is here” with the lucky student’s name written below.  I asked the other day if they would put a notice in my mail box when my eagerly anticipated packages arrived or should I just keep checking the board.  The answer?  Oh no, the only packages they hold at the office are those that come via delivery companies like UPS, or FedEx; mail parcels come through the local Israeli mail system.   Here is where the adventure begins. 

First I had to find the French Hill post office, no small matter since I can’t just look it up in the phone book (come to think of it, I haven’t even seen a phone book since I've been here) and it was nearly impossible to find online.  The ‘beginning’ directions I was given by the nice lady in housing had me turning right on the first road after the grocery store, then left, then just ask for the post office, or if I remembered the Hebrew word, the dohahr.  Yeah, no. 

In the process of searching google for the location, I learned many things about the postal system here.  First off, I’m fortunate to have a local post office at all.  One neighborhood nearby has none, and another has one, but it is only open sporadically.  Delivery is also problematic in some areas especially in East Jerusalem, where a lack of street signs and numbered houses makes it difficult to impossible for deliveries to be made at all.  It has actually become a civil rights issue, and last year a case was brought before the Supreme Court (not to be confused with the Supreme Court in the US).  Imagine, people pay their taxes and expect a service, sound familiar? 

So, I found a street address, “visited” it on google maps for better directions and headed out on my new “find it before you need it” routine.  Number 2 Abba Berditchev was not immediately visible.  Number 4 was the first building on the street and it wasn't a post office.  Taking a leap, I rang the bell and the lovely couple who lived there, directed me down and around to the back of the building, where, indeed there is a post office.  Success! So now I wait for the notice in my mail box that tells me my package has arrived. 

Had to have this translated for me! Open Hours

And by the way?  It turns out to be about a 10 minute walk from the dorms.  How do they do that?