Hey Guido! We Have Some Gum!

In an age when most of you will read this note within a day of me writing it, we had an interesting mail experience this week.

On Thursday Susan went to the post office in our little town of San Isidro de Heredia to pick up the mail. We ("we" meaning Susan) always pick up the mail from our box. Costa Rica has no street names and, therefore, no house addresses. This makes home mail delivery a bit challenging.

Challenging, but not impossible.

Some mail actually arrives to us with this address: "1.1 kilometers north of the principal bridge in San Isidro, the black gate three meters high, directly across the street from Cusuco's Bar." This is much better than our former address in Tres Rios. That one was more like: " The old road to Tres Rios, 50 meters east of the electrical sub-station of the ICE (power company), 25 meters north, 25 meters east, 25 meters north. Ask for the tall, bald gringo."

It is hard to come to the place in life where you have become a geographic landmark.

Anyway, Susan went into our little post office where the postmaster (and only employee), Andrea, greeted Susan with an anguished look and the words, "Oh, I am so glad that it is you!" Andrea and Susan usually get along very well so, at the very least, her anguished look caught my wife's attention.

Long story short: It seems that over two years ago Andrea took a short holiday. I vaguely remember the fellow that took her place during the vacation. Unlike Andrea, he wouldn't give me the mail if I showed up without the key for the box. He also apparently put our mail in someone else's box. Now, after two years, that family had finally gotten around to getting the "misdelivered" letters and packages back to Andrea and the Costa Rican postal system. Now, we were looking at letters that some of you had lovingly mailed in 2005!

It is good to know that Arvid and Coleen are not mad at us. They did in fact give us their new mailing address when they moved. Of course, we wondered why the prayer letters we sent them kept coming back with: "Undeliverable: no forwarding address." That didn't seem like Arv. The 2006 Calendar with beautiful photos and Scripture verses that Dick sent us also finally arrived. It seems a shame to not put it up on a wall someplace. To the rest of you who wrote, I would simply say, "I hope that all of us DID have a good 2006."

Although, come to think of it, I believe that is when this current U.S. presidential election began in earnest... it couldn't have been THAT good.

This is not the first time we have had interesting mail stories in Latin America.

Once, during a de facto military government in Bolivia, our mail was "held" for three months and read by intelligence agents. I had to visit with a major in the national police force to find out how my mother was doing. He told me she had a summer cold, but was getting better.

When we did start getting mail it wasn't always "all there." One day our daughter Krista received a card from her grandmother with five sticks of gum neatly taped inside. When I picked up the mail and looked in the already opened envelope, I could see the outside wrapping of those sticks of gum still taped down - without the gum inside! My indignant father blood boiled over. Someone was going to take responsibility for stealing from my
daughter this expression of her grandmother's love.

I marched to the office of the director of the post office and demanded that I be allowed to speak directly with him. When he finally came out from his cubby-hole, I think he knew he was in trouble. With righteous anger evident both in my voice and demeanor, I let him know my opinion of people who would steal from a child. I cannot remember if I properly translated the term "lower than a dog that sucks eggs," but I think he caught the gist of my thoughts.

Finally, when I had to take a breath, he said, "Mr. Roland, I know what happened! I can explain it." His apparent willingness to take responsibility stunned me. I waited to hear how he was going to investigate and deal with this evident malfeasance among his employees.

"Mr. Roland we have had this problem before." He held the envelope up in the air and declared with great conviction, "It is my firm belief that the Mafia in Florida is responsible for stealing this gum."

To this day, the image of two swarthy-looking guys with guns holstered beneath their Armani suits opening greeting cards makes me smile. "Hey, Guido. Look what we have here... chewing gum!"

Without saying another word, I turned on my heel and walked out of his office.

Seriously, we want to thank all of you for your correspondence with us. It is a great encouragement to us... no matter when we receive it.