getting and sending mail in the DR
That's odd, I had someone send me a UPS package from the States yesterday and it will be here this afternoon at 3.
Well we all have those freaky experiences where the DR postal system actually gets us something. I made the mistake of thinking the system worked after I received a US Postal package in a mere two weeks (right after I arrived almost two years ago). I should add that in almost two years we've only received real mail 4 times.
Following my stellar first two weeks here with actual mail received once, the next time I was in the US, I sent some things to myself here...they've NEVER arrived. One was a box of 50 used paper back books and the other was one of my medical equipment kits as well as sheet music (anyone out there receive them? I'm still interested in retrieving them!) I have had cards and postcards arrive EVENTUALLY when sent here AT the post office. The average for a birthday card is about 4-6 wks. Post cards: 2-8 months (some have never arrived.) I haven't sent anything regular DR mail in over a year. If I care about it getting there, it goes to the US WITH someone and gets dropped in a mail box or if it is urgent, International FedEx.
The US IRS (Internal Revenue Service) has this stupid idea that they can communicate with us via the DR postal service (we file using our foreign address so that we can rightly claim our foreign earned income exclusion.) Last week I had one of the more frustrating experiences of trying to retrieve a piece of mail rumored to be for us (the security guard in our complex tried to give it to another gringo couple--who let us know we had mail). However, the mail was supposedly returned to the SPM post office. After ascertaining this, I treked on down to the city of SPM post office...spent an hour there while they searched. They sent me across the street to the port with the tax folks (the DR ones) because clearly I must owe something or the package/envelope (didn't know which at that time) would be in the post office
Ha...another hour wasted looking through three months worth of incoming parcels with duty owed. Nothing...except I do know 3 other people who need to go pay them. Plus, the lovely lady tried to convince ME that I wanted to pay for them and go deliver the package (and in theory retrieve the duty I had paid)...yeah right. Many people here know they have packages and are intentionally NOT picking them up. SO, off I go to the Juan Dolio post office because that is the only other reasonable (ha, ha) possibility. Sit while the office worker checks the parcels. Nope, not there. Okay, maybe it's a letter? So she opens the desk drawer and starts pulling envelopes out that look like our youngest son brings home from school (4th grade) in his pockets. And wadda ya know? At the very back and bottom is our letter from the IRS notifying us that they've changed our 2006 tax return. OYE. I then brought it back and our security guard said "SI--eso es tu correo!"