KEEP THOSE CARDS AND LETTERS COMING!

There’s just a few little everyday things that remind me that I’m in a “third world” country…like no fresh milk…little or no police protection…the government being overturned about as frequently as the weather changes…and things we take for granted like mail delivery. Oh yes, I know, the USPS is anything but efficient – but it does provide home delivery 6 days a week – and, you can drop letters into those wonderful blue mailboxes stationed on corners throughout America.



In Vanuatu there is NO mail delivery and NO mailboxes in which to deposit your letters. If you want to mail something, you must take it to the post office here in town – no branches, just one main post office situated in downtown Port Vila. That’s not so bad for people in Port Vila, but if you are anywhere else on the island of Efate, it means that you have to send your mail with somebody who is coming into town and hope that they don’t forget to take it to the post office for you. In my case, I do get “home delivery” so to speak because I pick up my mail in the Volunteer’s Resource Room located at the Peace Corps office in Port Vila – just one block away from my office. But that’s only because a Peace Corps staff member goes to the Post Office and collects everything from the PMB 9097 mail pouch. Sounds easy, huh? In reality, it can be an arduous process. Regular mail is pretty easy – the staffer goes to the Post Office and brings the letters and cards back and distributes them. But if the Volunteer is located on an island other than Efate, the mail must either be sent by ship or plane to that island – and that can take weeks, months, or it may never reach its destination. Even in my case, I recently received a first class envelope that was postmarked November 12 – so it was 3.5 months in transit!! On the other hand, I’ve received some letters or cards within 14 days. So, there’s no way to figure out the transit time.


Packages are something else entirely. Upon receipt of a package at the Post Office, the postal clerk hand writes a notice of package delivery with the addressee’s name on it and places it in the Peace Corps mail bag. The staffer picks up mail twice weekly – Tuesday and Thursday – and upon receipt of notification of a package, the staffer then makes another trip to Customs. Sometimes the package has been cleared, and sometimes it hasn’t. So, they must often make a second trip. If the package has been opened and import duty is applied, the staffer pays the import fees and then deducts that amount from the Volunteer’s living allowance the following month. At long last the package is brought to the Peace Corps office and either placed in a mail cubicle if the volunteer is local or set aside for eventual shipment to an outer island. And whooeee, you’d better be ready to ransom your first child when paying the postage on a package. Typically a priority mail package will set you back at least $50-60, and in my case the most recent package cost almost $200 to get to me. However, it contains some things that I cannot get here, so I decided it was worth it. However….I’m still waiting and hoping that it arrives. Sometimes it never actually reaches the intended person…go figure!!


But after all that, I don’t want you to be discouraged – if you haven’t written lately, I’m anxiously checking my mail cube every day just in case one slim envelope from you has found its way across the Pacific to me. So, keep those cards and letters coming – it’s amazing how exciting it is to open a letter and read about what’s happening in your world. I got a letter recently from my sister, Ruby, describing how she was baking some snickerdoodles and I felt like I was in her kitchen talking to her.

So, in closing, my email is: csandatravels@gmail.com and my "snail mail" address is: 

Carla Sanda, PCV

Peace Corps

PMB 9097

Port Vila

Republic of Vanuatu

And - I promise to write back!