The Mail Jail

President Lara has assigned the job of "Pouchera" to me. That's a made-up title that means I'm going to be in charge of the mail that comes in and goes out of the office. Presently, Elder Hulse is the Pouchero, but he will completely his mission in about eight weeks, and thus is working hard to train me.

Last Friday, as part of my training, we went to the Mail Jail to bail out a package. You will recall that I have said repeatedly that if you're going to send a package, please have the post office put a green sticker on it (even if they tell you white is okay) and make certain it weighs four pounds or less. I found out Friday why those instructions are so important. If you disobey, the package you send goes to the mail jail.

Elder Wanless' family sent him a birthday package and it ended up in the mail jail because it was over four pounds.

At 1:00, Elder Wanless, Elder Hulse and I left the office. We took a taxi to the mail jail, which is slang for the Correo del Ecuador (Mail of Ecuador). Elder Wanless ran across the street and made two copies of his censo--his national ID card. Then he presented the two copies and the official notice that his package was in custody to a man behind a window. He looked over the paperwork, stamped it and collected $1.00 for his trouble.

The Customs office in the same building didn't open until 2:00. The Elders were (naturally) hungry, so we took a taxi back close to the office and ate lunch. Then we hurried back to the customs in order to be there at 2:00 when it opened. At 2:30, the customs people finally dragged in from their lunch. By that time, there were about 20 people waiting to get their packages. I should add here that Customs is only open from 9 to 12:30 and 2:00 to 3:00. Nice work if you can get it. One very brave (crazy?) woman stepped out of the office with a fistful of paperwork and proceeded to explain that there were too many people waiting for packages. She would call names until 3:00, then the office would close until Monday. You can probably imagine that people were pretty upset. I seriously thought there was going to be a riot at the mail jail, and was ready to stand up and start pulling the elders out of there. But she started calling names, and fortunately, Elder Wanless' name was one of the first she called.

He went into the customs area. They opened his package in his presence, looked inside it and decided that the gift candy was worth $19 in customs fees. They resealed the package and printed out a form that said he owed $19. By now, it was 2:45.

We caught another taxi to the Banco de Guayaquil, one of the two banks at which you can pay customs fees. Elder Wanless stood in the teller line and paid his $19. They stamped the back of his customs form. Our taxista had waited for us (what a blessing!) and we returned to the mail jail. Elder Wanless went back to the copy shop and copied the stamp on the back of the form, because he needed to keep the original stamped copy and they needed a photocopy. He went into the customs area, waited to prove that he had paid the customs fees and emerged victorious with package in hand.

We caught another taxi back to the office, arriving there at 4:00. The Elders were quite impressed that we managed to do it in less than four hours. I was absolutely appalled. Along the way, thinking about the deathblow to individual productivity that such a process delivers, I asked, "How do people put up with this?" Their stunning reply was "People here don't get mail." While I can understand why they don't get mail--who would want to--I have a hard time imaging a world that lacks the ability to go out your front door and send and receive mail from your own little mailbox. My electrical bill shows up in my condo mailbox once a month. Come to think of it, I have to go online to find out when I owe for my telephone bill and how much. Then I pay it at the little cabina across the street. I still haven't figured out how to pay my internet bill. I guess it's not through the mail.

Anyway, while we were returning to the office, Elder Wanless mentioned, "I seem to remember my family saying they had sent birthday packages." Sure enough, as we walked through the door, Sister Ligget said, "Hey, Elder Wanless, you have two more Mail Jail notices on your desk!" Sigh. I guess we get to do it all over again next week.

Does President Lara hate me?