Postal Service

Micronesia, being a United States protectorate, enjoys the services of the U.S. Postal Service. Mail is not delivered door-to-door as there are no addresses, so a P.O. Box is highly recommended.

When mailing from the U.S., using the flat-rate boxes, it is not expensive to mail things here, especially considering the distance. It is important when filling out the customs form to checkmark next to air mail or it will take a two-month sea voyage before arriving at its destination. Being able to receive mail is excellent and of great comfort to us. Before we left the States we packed eight flat-rate boxes and when we got a P.O. box, my brother, John, was kind enough to mail them all to us. It only took about 16 days for the boxes to arrive. Air mail comes in on Sundays and Wednesdays so it would stand to reason that mail is promptly in its slot by later that day. This is not the case. Mail, like many things here in Pohnpei, will appear only when convenient for the employees. If there is a parcel, a notice of pi

ck up is given. A trip to the customs office behind the post office is in order. Customs closes at 3:30 while the post office closes at 4pm. I checked my mail slot for the second time one day to find a pick-up notification being slid through after the Customs office had closed and the box had been there all day. When I picked it up the next day, it had been ransacked by rats who ate their greedy little hearts out of all my dry beans, quinoa, wheat bran and herbs. When I mentioned this to the postal workers they looked at me like I was boring them and said, “Yeah, it’s a problem. We tried to get rid of them, but…” I waited for an inordinate amount of time for a conclusion to this, but there was not an end to that sentence. I wonder if this was the same woman that told me she could not tell me over the phone whether I had a package or not and I would need to check in-person. From our first house it was a 40 minute walk (more if Xander wanted to walk on his own and not be carried part way) and so we would usually take taxis.

My dear friend, Sandy, would also drive us to the post office to check for mail and took us to retrieve seven of the eight boxes we sent ourselves of which two had been gnawed open by, you guessed it, the rats.

Parcel Day

When a package from friends or family arrives it is like Christmas. The box is placed on the dining ro

om table to admire until Zach gets home from work and we can all gently shake it and make conjectures as to the contents before opening it together. I would have never imagined two people being so excited about a gift of cotton swabs. The few I brought did not last long and we refused to pay $12 for Q-tips so we asked our parents to send some. Popcorn kernels, chocolate chips for baking, dried yeast, onion soup mix (for seasoning sauces and soups a pinch at a time) and nuts, glorious nuts. Almonds, peanuts, you name it and we lov

e it. We just don’t love it enough to justify spending $25 on a small bag.

We mail letters. We make lots of letters and handmade cards and send them out weekly. It takes about ten days for a letter to make it to New York from here. We want everyone back home to know how very special they are to us and a handwritten note on a handmade card is a great way to display that affection. The Holidays are just around the corner and we are now assembling a few boxes to send to family. Finding just the right things and arranging them in just the right way to be efficient with space and sound when shaken is part art and part physical science. With the amount of care that goes into the packaged boxes we'll send, I hope they are enjoyed even half as much as we appreciate the ones we receive.

May all our cards and boxes arrive safely and post-haste.

Even the empty boxes themselves are used to organize our closets and for toy bins- very useful.