Post Office

The post office in Dajabón is very basic. It is a room with a very few furniture, an antique balance, and usually two people working. Mails arrive from the capital and leaves for the capital twice a week.

I went to this post office to mail a postcard to my aunt who does not use emails. Sending a postcard to Asia costs 15 pesos, but I was told that the rate has gone up to 35 pesos or more. In order to confirm the rate, the lady at the post office looked for a rate chart which was in the old notebook that I too have had seen before. She could not locate the notebook, and she called the office in Santiago, the second city of the country. What she was told was 53 pesos. Can the rate go up from 15 to 53 pesos just in a few months? I was doubtful. I decided that I had better check it up in the internet. So I asked for enough stamps to buy so that I didn’t have to come back to the post office. She gave me the stamps, but as she received a 100 peso bill from me, she said there was not even a peso of change in the office, because she had just gone to the bank to deposit all the money. …well…okay. I said I could come back next week.

I opened the homepage of the Dominican postal service, but they did not have information on international rates. I found a telephone number of the central office, and I called. The number was no longer in service.

This kind of story is a classic one. One would encounter a similar scenario everywhere in this country.