(Dis)Connected

Is checking post marks one of your favorite pastimes?  It’s a new favorite for me.  Whether mail is delivered here from the US or from within Brazil, I have seen absolutely no consistency in the delivery time. We have, in the same week, received 2 pieces of mail from the US postmarked 8 days and 32 days prior.  That is, one letter took only 8 days to arrive and the other 32.  They were both just letters, nothing fancy or special about them.  In another instance, Grammy sent all 3 kids their own valentines (obviously, she mailed them all on the same day).  Two of them arrived within a week of each other.  The last one  arrived almost 2 weeks later. Why the inconsistency? 

The problem also exists with our Brazilian mail as well.  We have more than once received a bill due in 3 days or less.  No wonder auto-debit is so popular here.

Last week I made a profound conclusion.  We have lived in this house for 3 months now, and have only received mail about 10 times.  (boy, aren’t we popular?!)  But here is what I finally realized.  When we do receive mail, we tend to receive a lot of it.  On Tuesday of this week, we received 7 pieces of mail. Of those 7 pieces, 1 was a bill, 2 were letters from the US, 2 were for the homeowner and 1 was for an American ex-pat who rented this house 7 years ago.   But the strange thing is it’s been more than 2 weeks since we’ve had any mail at all.  They must be holding our mail until they feel they have enough to bother with delivering!  It’s the only conclusion I can draw.  So, if you’ve ever written me a letter, and waited and waited and waited for a reply, this is my excuse.

We’ve had a similar situation with packages (or, more commonly, large padded envelopes), which are delivered by a different mail carrier.  Nothing for 2 months, then 3 in one day.  It is unlikely a coincidence.   Yesterday takes the cake, though, we received a package of our US mail that Grammy sent to us on February 10.  We received it on April 26.  Well, I guess that’s only, what, 75 days….

I also should share the interesting bit about packages.  Brazil has high import taxes on goods not produced in the country.  It is in some ways a very wise action to promote manufacturers to set up their South American operations in Brazil, creating jobs, tax revenue and so on.  Auto manufacturers, agricultural and construction equipment manufacturers, toy makers, furniture, appliances….almost all the products you can buy here are made here.  If you desire to buy, say, a Samsung TV made in Korea, you will probably pay 60% of the product price in taxes.  Imported goods are very, very, very expensive.  Because there is not much I need to buy here, I didn’t know that mattered to me, until Christmas grew near and I was warned by a seasoned expat to be wary to relatives sending packages.  The postal agency reserves the right to open packages and verify contents, and then charge a duty or import tax on goods, to make them comparable to purchasing the item in Brazil.  For interest I checked Amazon for a $15 See & Say toy.  (Do you remember these? Pull the string, the arrow goes around and stops…”A Cow Says Moooo…” )  The website estimated $35 on shipping and another $50 for import taxes.  Luckily we’ve received a precious few packages without incident, but we know many a family who have received a notice in lieu of the package, asking them to come to the post office to pay the taxes in order to pick up the package.  Typically, the taxes have amounted to 2-3 times the US value of the item sent. 

I feel so blessed to have the internet.  I could not imagine doing this assignment 10 or 15 years ago, with such long stretches between letters and contact with home.  We can email every day, I can blog our happenings for everyone to read, we can call our friends or relatives over the internet just like dialing a local number.  Hey, I can even see what is on sale at Target this week, if I just really want to know. :)