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