A Slow Boat to Mexico?

Almost four months ago, on March 26th to be exact, I wrote here on this blog that I had sent this postcard to Alejandro's nephew Ezra in Mexico City.

On Monday, 109 days later, Ezra received his postcard.  (The Pony Express was able to deliver mail across the continental United States in ten days, and I could have walked from Ohio to Mexico City in less than 109 days!)

I really don't understand what has happened to the Mexican postal service.  Nearly fifty years ago, when I attended school in Mexico, the system was not speedy, but it was relatively efficient.  My parents would send me letters and bank money orders so that I would have spending money, and they arrived in a little more than a week.  Almost forty years later, after I first met Alejandro, I sent him a Christmas card in late November.  He received the card in time for Easter.

I sent Ezra another postcard in May.  Where is that card right now?  On a rowboat headed across the Gulf of Mexico?  On a donkey crossing the Sierra Madre Mountains?  Most likely it is sitting in a Mexico City post office, and one day someone will decide to deliver it.

Ezra enjoys receiving mail, so in spite of the snail's pace in delivery, today I am sending him another card.  This one has a picture of Ohio's state bird, the cardinal.

He should receive it sometime in November!

I have been traveling to Mexico for nearly a half century, and in those years I have seen much progress there.  Sadly, the postal system has regressed.