Postal service needs upgrading

Postal service needs upgrading

Indonesia's postal services badly need upgrading.

I have been traveling in Indonesia for four months now (with
the necessary detour to another country after the first two
months) and had beforehand given my friends, family and
colleagues information on when, how and where to send mail to me.
I was naive and told them to send letters two to three weeks
before the dates I was picking up my mail.

Sometimes it took five weeks to come by air from Denmark to a
town in Indonesia. Sometimes I didn't receive a letter at all.
There are 10 or 15 letters I did not get. My friend learned that
two packets had been sent to Indonesia, but they were never
received. One of the packets (a thick letter which contained
licorice) was, according to a friendly employee in Jakarta,
forwarded to Ujung Pandang on Aug. 30, 1995.

Every single place we've been had general delivery addresses
and we left written notes about where and when to forward our
mail. But still nothing happened. Only one single letter was
thankfully forwarded from Banjarmasin to me in Jakarta.

One letter was addressed to Ternate, Maluku. But it was
received and kept in Jakarta for some reason. But at least I got
it.

Once I wrote to a couple of post offices and asked them not to
return my mail even if it meant that they had to keep it for more
than the usual time allowed. I told them what date I would
collect the mail. I addressed the messages to the "postmaster."

In one of the offices, the letter hadn't been opened. It was
lying there with the general delivery mail. It took me about ten
minutes to make the person who gave us the box with general
delivery mail understand that the letter was to the office -- not
to a person with the surname "postmaster" (since then I've been
writing Kepala Kantor Pos instead).

This is not a complaint over the workers in the post offices
-- because the directors, chiefs, kepala or whatever the bosses
are called -- bear the responsibility. Please, be sure that the
staff who deal with general delivery mail function properly.

Some offices work well though, especially the ones in Jakarta.
But others seem to work unsatisfactorily.

However, apart from that disappointment, I had four wonderful
months in a stunningly beautiful country. This was my third visit
to this country with the most friendly, tolerant, smiling people
I've ever met.

EVA KIRSCHNER

Denmark