Dobleve

Normally when we travel one of our friends keeps an eye on our house; keeping the plants alive in 100 degree or more heat requires daily watering.  In the winter though things pretty much take care of themselves in our house while we’re gone, except for the mail.

We don’t receive enough mail to worry most times, but since we are missing several packages from the holidays and were leaving for a week, we decided to see if the mail service here, Correos, had the ability to hold our mail while we were gone.  In the US, placing your mail on hold these days involves a few clicks in your web browser.  If you go to the USPS web site you’ll find a link to hold your mail on the home page.  Not so for Correos.

We went to the Correos office in town to see if we could get our mail held.  Sure enough, they offer this service.  Rather than an impersonal web page to set this up, we had to go see our cartero (mailman), or in our case, our cartera (mail woman).  It turns out the mail carriers keep office hours at their desk at the post office from 11-1 each day.  Although we know our cartera by sight and exchange a friendly “¡Hola!” when we pass each other in the street we don’t know her name and certainly don’t know her well enough to just stop by for office hours.  Until now.  Holding our mail was an easy process, we went to the office area of the post office, talked to our cartera and gave her the dates we need our mail held.  She wished us happy travels and we were off.

As much as I love technology and the positive changes it has brought (including allowing Shannon and I to live and work from Granada!), it has also caused us to lose something in the process – human contact.  If I had my way I’d remove the USPS web site link for holding mail and ask everyone to go visit their mail carrier during office hours – this person comes to your house every day, stop by their office one day and say “Hello!”