Post Office
Jul. 30th, 2013 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asakiyumeI had to return a completed job by post this morning. While I was filling out a form, the door opened and there was an amazing sound of CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP emanating from a cardboard box, marked "live chicks" and with sides punctuated with air holes and with hay sticking out from those holes.
"The beats are the heart of the party," the person carrying this box was saying into his bluetooth. He set the box down on the counter and left.
CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP! said those live chicks.
"Ed's called twice already, wondering where his chicks are," said J.
"Well, you can tell him they've arrived," said T.
I asked about chick delivery, and T told me that they have go overnight. Those chicks came from Iowa.
. . . Did you know that East Timor has no government-run, nationwide postal system?
They have internet and wifi. The East Timor Action Network just today reported that Timor Telecom is offering computers to schools and universities in Timor-Leste (East Timor), "to contribute to the digital inclusion of students and create a new approach to teaching." But if I want to get a computer to someone in Timor-Leste--say someone in the town of Ainaro--I either have to bring it myself or give it to someone who's going over, who then has to hand deliver it or entrust it to someone to deliver. If I make friends with anyone in Ainaro while I'm over there, I can send them emails or phone them, but I can't send them a letter, not directly to their home.
My contact tells me that within the town of Ainaro there's mail delivery that's carried out by the district administration, and maybe the same thing happens in other districts, and in the capital of Dili. But if you're in Dili and you want to get something to Ainaro, you have to arrange something with a bus driver or someone else who will play courier.
This is one way (one of many ways) in which Timor-Leste is different from the fictional nation of W-- in my Pen Pal novel. W-- has a postal service.
"The beats are the heart of the party," the person carrying this box was saying into his bluetooth. He set the box down on the counter and left.
CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP! said those live chicks.
"Ed's called twice already, wondering where his chicks are," said J.
"Well, you can tell him they've arrived," said T.
I asked about chick delivery, and T told me that they have go overnight. Those chicks came from Iowa.
. . . Did you know that East Timor has no government-run, nationwide postal system?
They have internet and wifi. The East Timor Action Network just today reported that Timor Telecom is offering computers to schools and universities in Timor-Leste (East Timor), "to contribute to the digital inclusion of students and create a new approach to teaching." But if I want to get a computer to someone in Timor-Leste--say someone in the town of Ainaro--I either have to bring it myself or give it to someone who's going over, who then has to hand deliver it or entrust it to someone to deliver. If I make friends with anyone in Ainaro while I'm over there, I can send them emails or phone them, but I can't send them a letter, not directly to their home.
My contact tells me that within the town of Ainaro there's mail delivery that's carried out by the district administration, and maybe the same thing happens in other districts, and in the capital of Dili. But if you're in Dili and you want to get something to Ainaro, you have to arrange something with a bus driver or someone else who will play courier.
This is one way (one of many ways) in which Timor-Leste is different from the fictional nation of W-- in my Pen Pal novel. W-- has a postal service.
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beneficent mycelium
Date: 2013-07-31 12:12 pm (UTC)Plus, I totally agree with you.
Plus, I was thinking about how hard it is to argue for a postal system--something I strongly believe in as a civic responsibility--when any observer can look at how we're treating our own (and also at the fact that it's not without cost to run). Especially, though, when you're trying to assert that a place is one country, and to get a sense of national unity over disparate communities speaking different languages, I'd think it would be a key thing. But perhaps on the ground in Timor-Leste people feel that they're drawn together more through Internet communications. And, too, to have a postal system requires development and upkeep of the infrastructure for delivering the mail, which is also an issue there. I'm about to find out why it is that a journey of 70 miles takes 6 hours, for instance...
no subject
Date: 2013-07-31 12:45 pm (UTC)And oh, I was so not dissing public policy in East Timor. I'm entirely unqualified to do so, being arbitrarily close to entirely ignorant. I was dissing US discourse about public policy! :D
no subject
Date: 2013-07-31 01:38 pm (UTC)