The post office

An account of my trying to leave Brazil in December 1970 at the conclusion of my mission, written in the fall of 1971 while I continued as a student at Brigham Young University.

Leaving Brazil, somehow, wasn't an easy thing to do. And I haven't figured out even now why they wanted to make it so hard. Maybe I never will.

I remember the morning well. It was a slow day, slow even with all I had to do to get out of the country. The flies were even slow, especially the one that raced a bead of sweat down my leg and lost. The lines were always slow, but today more than ever. Each trip to the post office here always took longer than I had to spend. Once I stood behind 11 people—there was plenty of time to count—and the window closed for lunch only two people away. The next shortest line had 16. One of these was the teller's cousin or something, and she had to tell him all about her trip to Rio. Another had a complaint about some letter she'd received, or hadn't received, I couldn't quite hear which, although it took her the whole of seven minutes to complain about it. And one old man couldn't find the letter he'd come to mail.

On this particular day, the day I was trying to leave town, it took only 20 minutes in line to find out that I had to haul my suitcase upstairs to the naval shipping office. So I lugged it up the winding staircase to an incredibly dusty room that I was pleased to find had no lines. There were three or four clerks in the room, none of them looking very busy.

"I want to ship this suitcase," I said to a young man, the closest to me. He didn't say a word, just stared (I guess he'd never seen an actual American before), and finally pointed over into a corner. A short man with a pudgy stomach and a bald spot, who I soon learned was the head clerk here, looked up at me.

"I want to ship this suitcase," I repeated.

"Today?"

"Well, yes, I was hoping today." I didn’t like the tenor of his question. It was nearly noon on Friday, and I was leaving for Recife Sunday afternoon. It was now or never.

"We're busy today, with the weekend and all," he said, getting up and walking over to where I stood in the doorway. "Can't you come back Monday, or even better, Tuesday?"

"Tuesday?" I echoed. "Look, sir, I'm leaving town Sunday and I have to send this today."

"We're so busy," he started again.

"You don't understand. I am leaving for America Sunday. That's the day after tomorrow."

"Well, let me look at it. Where are you sending it?" he asked, heading for my suitcase, my intrusion not making him too happy. I wondered if anyone ever sent anything through this office; all I could see was pile upon pile of paperwork.

"America." The answer seemed specific enough to satisfy him.

"How much does this weigh?" he asked as soon as he saw how big the suitcase was.

"About 25 kilo." I probably should have said 20 kilo. The not-too-accurate scale Dona Creuza had found for me estimated its weight at 22. In Rio I had shipped a 30-kilo package and had been told that 30 was the absolute limit.

"I knew we couldn't handle you today," he said. "The limit is 20 kilo. You'll have to come back Monday." I wondered if he had ever listened.

"Twenty kilo?" I was hoping I hadn't heard him right.

"Yes, 20 kilo."

"But in Rio, just last year, I shipped one for 30 kilo, and I didn't have this hassle."

"But the limit here is only 20. Excuse me." He turned to go, sounding like he'd already won, and I couldn't let him win that easily.

"Why is the limit 20 kilo?" I persisted.

"Why? Because it just is." He looked at me, then he continued. "You do not understand, senhor americano, how things are here . . ."

I was afraid I understood all too well.

". . . in this post office. Let me read you something." He rummaged through three piles of paper looking for something, maybe a document that would tell me why. After a few minutes he found it, or at least something that would serve just as well.

"Listen," he said, and then he started into some government regulations governing the classification of post offices. Even in Portuguese the language of official documents is gobbledygook, so I didn't understand most of what he was reading. I wonder now if even he did.

After he had read for long enough, he took off his glasses and looked at me again and said, "Our post office here in Maceió is a second class post office. If we were a first class post office we could send your suitcase, but were not and the limit is still 20 kilo. Besides, we have to close now for lunch."

That sounded final. I tried a parting shot: "If I come back this afternoon with only 20 kilo, can you still ship it for me?"

"Yes, I suppose so," he said with as little enthusiasm as possible. "But remember, the limit is 20 kilo."