Figuring out the post office

Although this week was tough (see my last post,) I did celebrate a small success. My biggest win this week was learning how to send a letter from the post office. I had a couple of frustrating experiences at my old site, and due to language and confidence problems, I didn’t step foot in the Ecik post office until this week. After a lot of difficulties, some shouting, and 2 hours later, I was successful in sending something to a very special person!

It seems that every volunteer has a “stress zone”; a place that causes them a lot of anxiety. For example, some volunteers find train stations a stress zone, because they are worried about missing their train or hopping on the wrong one. For others, it’s bus and taxi stations.

My stress zone is the post office. It’s not a bad place, just a very confusing one. Every time I went inside, something would go wrong or I would do something incorrect, and then I couldn’t send or receive letters.

Then I'd get really fustrated, and just leave in a huff.

Its not fun getting pwned by an inanimate object like a bike. Or a post office.

I realize this sounds silly. Any idiot should be able to send a letter, right? But sometimes it is the most routine things that are the hardest to accomplish.

Many volunteers don't even bother with snail mail. It's difficult, takes a lot of time, and can be very stressful. Modern technology is also cheaper: an hour of internet costs about the same as one letter to the US. But it's not as awesome as receiving stamps from a different continent.

So how did I do it? I'm still unclear about the "how", but I'll explain 6 things that I found different from the US side:

1. You can only buy envelopes at the post office. Last year, I wrote a letter and carried it in my pocket for a week searching every shop in Karabulak asking for envelopes. Finally someone told me that they are only sold at the post office. I felt like an idiot.

2. You can only buy stamps at the post office. No getting a roll of stamps at the local store. I spent the same amount of time looking for stamps as I did envelopes and felt twice as dumb when I figured it out.

3. The teller at the post office will place the stamps on the envelope for you. On one side, this prevents you from overpaying. On the other side, coming from a country where we put the stamps on ourselves, this was something that takes getting used to. The first time I got my envelop and stamps from the post office, I told the the teller that I could put the stamps on myself. She thought this was funny I didn’t like being laughed at.

4. To receive a package, you have to fill out a receipt form. But here’s the kicker: The majority of the form is in Kazakh! I can speak and type in Russian, but I can barely physically write in Russian. And Kazakh? I’m getting better, but don’t expect me to write anything anytime soon.

o Bring your passport. The first time I filled out a receipt form by myself it took 2 days. And 5 different copies of the receipt form because I kept doing it wrong. I never learned how to do it right, and only got the package out of pity because I had a breakdown in the post office. After that I was known in the Karabulak post office as “the guy who we just give the packages to because he can’t write.” It was humiliating, and I started to avoid the building as much as possible.

o Speaking of breakdowns, I’ve cried 6 times in Kazakhstan. Twice was because of frustrations relating to the post office. Once was in the post office outright. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve shed some tears. In fact, if you show me a Volunteer that hasn’t gotten misty eyed at least once during their 27 months in Kazakhstan, I’ll show you a volunteer that did their service wrong.

o Pick up your packages on time! You can pay a late fee if they are there too long. How long is too long? I don’t know. When I returned to Karabulak from the north after doing a camp on Business English , I was saddled with a 1500 KzT fee to get two packages that arrived while I was gone. And again I failed to fill out the form correctly. The post office tellers were very tired of me by this point.

5. The post office is also where people receive pensions every month. If you go during those tmes, expect a huge crowd. And shorter tempers. And lots of stares. Which brings me to another subpoint:

o There are no lines in Kazakhstan! People just stand around the thing that they want. To get “in line”, you have to ask around to find who is last, then proclaim yourself last, and hope that the next person asks who is last, and then doesn’t hop in front of you.

6. You’ve must write the return address in Russian. No return address = no sent letter. Those postcards from Kyrgyzstan that I sent? No return address. Yeah…nobody got those.

I also have 3 recommendations for making the post office easier:

1. Make a friend in the post office. In Karabulak, I didn’t have the language skills or the confidence to do this, and as a result I had a very hard time. In Esik, I will always go to teller number 4 after lunch on Wednesdays, because 90% of the time because she is nice and doesn’t mind that I leave out the “ь” letter in Область (the Russian word for state. And the missing letter is silent, which is why I forget about it when writing).

2. Figure out when the pensioners go to the post office. Then don’t go that week. It's just too complicated.

3. Don’t lose your cool. The post office can still be stressful. People will still stare at you. You will be cut in line. Tellers will tell you that your forms are incorrect. But don’t give up. Quitters never win.