Category Archives: Life in Mazatlán

Post and Ship – A lot more than meets the eye.

IMG_0673Updated Dec 30, 2015 with new location information

Some of you are probably familiar with Post and Ship, and some may not be. No matter which category you fall into, most people don’t fully realize the range of services they provide, nor the history behind this Mazatlán institution. I encourage you to use their services, as it helps support local families, and you get the mail you want; so much better than those impersonal faceless scanning services, which suck the profit off to who knows where, but certainly not Mazatlán!

Post and Ship is owned by a U.S. American living in the States. When the store first opened in the 80’s it was a Mailboxes, Etc. franchise. After many years operating in this fashion, the decision was made to sever ties with the conglomerate and provide the same services at lower prices. Thus, Post and Ship was born in 2003.

When you see signs or business cards for the business, they say Post@Ship as compared to Post&Ship. The legal documents use the word ‘and.’ How the @ symbol got to be part of the printed name is a mystery, but a tradition that remains to this day.

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Despite the name, the largest and most important service provided to the community of Mazatlán is private mailbox rentals with a U.S. mailing address. This service is invaluable for many extranjeros living in the city, as well as Mexican businesses who want a U.S. presence. Renters are provided a unique mailing address in Laredo, Texas. There mail is sorted and shipped twice weekly to Mazatlán. The sorting facility is huge and shared with other companies, including Estafeta. There is a Mexican Customs (Aduana) representative on site, and any packages shipped to Mexico must pass through the customs office for clearance and applicable duty assessment. Packages are shipped separately from mail and bundled with others’ packages to keep the cost down.

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In addition to mailbox rental, as the name implies, Post and Ship will box up your national or international packages and help you get the best price from FedEx, UPS or Estafeta. They are an official UPS Access Point, so prepaid UPS packages can be dropped off there.

Another great service is outgoing mail to the U.S. and Canada using the U.S. mail. For 20 pesos for a one ounce or less letter or card, they will ship your stamped card to Laredo, where it is put into the U.S. mail service. It is illegal to sell stamps outside of the United States and Canada. So, you need to bring some stamps with you. If you don’t have stamps, they will ship the letter to Laredo where it will be stamped. This cost 45 pesos for U.S. and 65 pesos for the Canada (including the shipping).

Post and Ship is also part papeleria, selling a wide variety of office supplies like pens, envelopes, markers, folders, etc. They provide copier service, scanning service, incoming and outgoing fax service, and they even make keys! They are kind enough to maintain a community bulletin board with useful information to the foreign community in Mazatlán. They are often a pick-up point for tickets for various events happening here. And for those so inclined, you are welcome to use the wi-fi while you’re there.

Did I mention they also teach Spanish for free?! Well, not formally. Perhaps the best thing about Post and Ship are the two wonderful charming ladies who keep it running and provide customer service: Ana and Melva. Ana began working for the company in 2002 when it was still a MailBoxes, etc. Melva joined shortly thereafter in 2003 when the new business was born. They are both bilingual and happy to help you in English, but they are also the most patient and helpful Spanish conversationalists I have found in Mazatlán. They always smile, are incredible multi-taskers, and know all of their clients by name.

Post and Ship is open Monday thru Friday from 9:00 to 5:30, Saturday from 9:00 to 1:00, and closed on Sundays and Mexican holidays. Mail arrives from Laredo on Mondays and Thursdays. Sometimes it arrives in the late afternoon, and mail may not be sorted until the following day.

A standard size mail box costs 3,080 pesos per year or 1,940 for six months. Larger boxes are available, but are mostly used by local businesses.

They are very excited about their new location. The entire store has moved to Bugambilia 201 in between Laguna and Av. Camaron Sabalo. There is a Farmacia Moderna on the corner and they are just west of that. The best news is that Bugambilia is a two-way street with ample parking. If you are coming to the Golden Zone from the south, take the left at the light as though you were headed to the Hotel Playa and make your first right onto Bugambilia. If are coming from the north, slow down when you see DHL and Domino’s Pizza and be prepared to turn right at the aforementioned Farmacia Moderna.  They also have a Facebook Page.  Phone number is 916-4010 and email is postandship@prodigy.net.mx.

Finding a way to deal with the “business” of our lives while living abroad can be difficult. Some people forgo U.S. mail and favor all things electronic. But, a majority of people still like to receive mail. If you have struggled to find a way to receive your mail from abroad or just need to have some copies made, stop in and visit Ana and Melva. You won’t be sorry.

How to Climb a Palm Tree

5.IMG_0161I love how people worldwide do the same things in so many different ways. For example, climbing palm trees. How many ways do YOU know to climb a palm tree?

Where I was born, the mainland USA, people who climb palm trees tend to use the proper equipment: gloves, spiked/spurred boots, and, always safety conscious, a harness and a rope or “flip line.”

In many places that I’ve witnessed worldwide, palm tree climbers do the job au naturale, using no equipment—not even shoes. They use only their bare hands and feet. One technique is to actually walk up the palmera, using the scars from dropped fronds for leverage:

The most popular equipment-less way that I’ve seen worldwide to climb a palm tree, however, is using one’s thighs as vices:

This gentleman uses natural “rope” that he puts around his feet to aid his climb, a technique somewhere between using and not using equipment, I’d say:

Here’s a guy who climbed a palmera with a GoPro, so we get a climbers’-eye view:

This morning, on a lazy, warm, post-Christmas/pre-New Year’s day, we spent some time during our morning walk to watch as the CFE workers climbed the new palm trees on the malecón to install the beautiful new lighting, now that the electric cabling is in place.

We are excited to have lighting on the new palm trees along the malecón in front of our house—they say the lights should get turned on Monday or Tuesday in front of where we live. Of course, they’ve been on for a while now from Valentino’s southward to Insurgentes.

3.IMG_0159The CFE workers are using a combination of the above methods. They have ropes that they have braided into a loop on each end: one larger and one smaller loop. The rope is passed around the tree trunk and through the large loop, to act as a harness. The other, smaller loop goes on the guy’s foot or thigh, like a stirrup. Each worker had two double-looped ropes: one for each leg (see photo above). Each worker moves one of the foot ropes that’s wound around the tree up with his hands, as he steps up. Then, he rolls the other rope up along the truck, and steps up with the other foot. Some workers kept the loop on their feet and walked up, others, less nimble I suppose, put the second harness around their thigh to walk up.

Either way, the leg/foot harnesses appeared to make it much easier to climb the tree than just bare feet. Plus, if they lost their footing, their foot braces would act as a harness. No spurred boots, no gloves, but they did also use a safety harness. Sorry about the quality of the photos; we only had a cell phone with us.

How does the whole process work? A truck drops off a bunch of the light fixtures in one central location for that day’s work. To us, this looked dangerous: easy pickings for someone in a pickup truck to steal. One of the CFE workers has a bicycle, and bikes back to the fixture stockpile, bringing one light at a time to the workers who do the installation.

Two workers climb each tree to install the lights, one light on each side. The malecón, as you well know, has already been jackhammered a couple of times, and conduit and cabling installed. Conduit (metal pipe) has also been fastened along the ocean side of each of the palmeras/palm trees. Each piece of conduit has a guide wire placed through it. (Click on any photo to view it larger or see a slideshow.)

The workers climb the tree, the electrician going first. He has a rope hanging from his waist. Once the two workers are in position at the top of the tree, a third worker down below ties a light fixture to the rope, and the electrician pulls it up. The two workers use temporary wire to fasten the fixture to the tree, and the electrician then connects the wiring. They put in the second fixture the same way, then install the metal bands that will hold the fixtures up permanently. The electrician throws the two electrical cables, one from each fixture, to the third worker on the malecón (he holds onto the top end of the cables). The guy below braids these two cables together, fastening the ends with electrical tape. The electrician pulls the braid back up, and fastens it to the guide wire. Finally, he feeds it into the conduit, and the guy on the bottom pulls it down through the tube.

There is plenty of extra cabling, so that the palm tree can grow without rewiring the lights. This extra cabling is buried at the base of the tree.

Nothing earth shattering, but a fun show to watch on a Saturday morning. And, several steps closer to having lights on the palmeras in front of our house!

The People You Touch

DSC_0808 Faces and Places of Colonia San Antonio

Every year we are privileged to be able to help the Medina family and all the others who help out with Desayuno de los Pollos. This year, thanks to help from so many of YOU, we have already been able to purchase 2500 whole chickens and pack up 1500 packs of despensas, or 10 days worth of food. This should feed about 13,000 families this year. We also take gently used clothes, toys and candy to share. In the slideshow below are photos of just a few of the people you touch. And, of course, they are people who very much touch us back in turn, making our holidays bright. (Click the arrows in the slideshow below to view photos more quickly. Please let me know what you think of these portraits! Thanks!)

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Yesterday I went out, as usual, with Yolanda and Jorge, to meet with community leaders of Colonia San Antonio. We handed out about 900 (!) tickets for food to members of the community. Why is this important? Because Colonia San Antonio, as so many other colonias on the outskirts of town (we give out food along 7-9 routes every year; San Antonio is just one of them), is an invasión. This means that the land on which the houses are built is privately owned, and the people living there are squatters. Normal procedure in these circumstances is that poor people move in, “squat” on the land, build homes out of pallets, recycled tarp, or even cardboard or metal. Eventually they band together and string electrical wire for themselves, and lay pipes for water. They have now done this in Colonia San Antonio.

Five or so years ago, when we first started going there to hand out chickens, they had neither water nor electricity. Now they do. I don’t see any transformers or breakers or anything, pretty much just a very long extension cord running from house to house. But, they do have electricity. Once the community grows large and successful enough, the city, or municipio, decides to access the colonia. The city pays the landowner for the land, and the people living in the invasión are required to start paying taxes.

The good news is, the squatters get to own their land and their homes. Some of the people who occupy the land in these invasiones, however, do not live there full time. Some come out to visit the homes they have only on the weekend, like a (very basic) country house. Others farm the land, but live in town. They basically squat as a way of making (a bit of) money, eventually, when the city decides to give the squatters a deed to the land they occupy.

Yolanda, Jorge and I go out here to meet with community leaders, so that they can take us around, home to home. They can tell us who lives here full time, and who only happens to be here once in a while. The community leaders tell us which families are most in need (maybe they need two chickens or packs of food, or extra clothing), and which are doing better than others. In this way, we can be as equitable as possible in what we hand out. This week, we were there from about 10 am till 2:00 pm.

It is one of my favorite days of the year. I am able to meet with incredible community leaders, people who themselves have fallen on hard times, don’t have much in the way of money, but who have the caring and the fortitude, the vision and the sense of justice, to better their communities. I also have the privilege to meet the people I’ve met with over the past five or so years that we’ve been going to Colonia San Antonio. I get to visit with people we know, and get a glimpse into how people there live.

This year, I made a point of taking photos of two things: the faces and the places of Colonia San Antonio. The first slide show, above, is of some of the faces of this invasión. You can see the joy, the dignity, and the difficulty these people experience every day. I have so very much to learn from so many of these people. I am so grateful to be able to meet with them and, hopefully, share with them a bit of joy and ease their burden just a bit.

The second slide show, below, is of the places: the homes, stores, and plazas of this colonia. It amazes me how simply people here live, how hard they work for what they have, yet how clean they keep their homes, the care and love they bestow on their children. How, despite the dust EVERYWHERE, most everyone has clean clothes and skin and hair. Nearly every home is decorated for the holidays, and many of them have beautiful demonstrations of religiosity as well, especially for the Virgen de Guadalupe. (Click on the arrows in the slideshow below to view all photos more quickly.)

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You are most welcome to join us on Christmas Eve morning, Wednesday this week, to caravan out to the 7-9 routes we’ll go on and hand out chickens, food, clothes, toys and candy. We’ll meet at Quince Letras downtown, 6:30 am if you have a pickup truck, 7:00 am if you are coming to help out. We should be finished by noon. Merry Christmas and see you Wednesday morning!
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Part of the #MyGlobalLife Link-Up.

Where and When to Hand Out Chickens

Quince Letras, corner of Tampico and Francisco Villas streets We load from either side of this "Coca Cola" store on the corner

Quince Letras, corner of Tampico and Francisco Villas streets
We load from either side of this “Coca Cola” store on the corner

THANK YOU all for joining us on the 24th of December, the morning of Christmas Eve day, to hand out chickens, food, clothing, toys and candy! It’s a terrific event and very, very memorable. It has been a family tradition of ours for many years now; even our son very much looks forward to it.

Don’t worry if you don’t speak Spanish; we’ll pair you up with a group that has someone bilingual. Please bring your pickup truck or large vehicle if you have one. Also, wear your Santa hats and Desayuno de los Pollos t-shirts if you have them!

Are you wondering what time to show up on the morning of December 24th in order to help load the trucks and deliver the goodies out to the invasiones? Those who have worked in the past and know the drill, please plan to show up about 6:30 am. Those of you who are first-timers, coming by about 7:00 am will put you there just in time to help us load. We make lines of people to pass the foodstuffs/despensas into the truck, and able-bodied guys load the boxes of frozen chickens.

If you have used clothing, toys or candy that you want to be sure gets handed out, please take it over to the Medina family this week so we can get it sorted. Any donations you have will also be appreciated in advance, so we can buy more chickens! Just take whatever you have to the wrought iron shop where Jorge works. It’s open every work day.

DATE: December 24th

TIME: 6:30 am if you are driving a truck, 7:00 am if you are helping us load and deliver. We usually finish by 11:30 or noon, but some years it’s taken longer (depends how many routes you participate in).

LOCATION: 15 (QUINCE) LETRAS, corner of Francisco Villa and Tampico, just down the hill from the Church of Cristo Rey (Christ the King)

  1. Turn East at the Fisherman’s Monument.
  2. Go to the first light and turn right.
  3. Proceed one block and turn left (Francisco Villa street, just before the Pemex station).
  4. Go two blocks.
  5. If you are NOT driving a truck or transporting supplies, please park in the next block. This will give us room for loading. Once you’ve parked, walk another block down, past the iron works business called “Quince Letras.” On the corner of Francisco Villa and Tampico you will see a small store with a bright red “Coca Cola” hand painted on the outside, across from a tortillería. A door next to the Cocheras Automaticas business will be open. That’s Yolanda’s mother’s house, and it’s from there that we’ll be loading.
  6. If you ARE driving a truck or transporting supplies, please drive up to Tampico street (the “Coca Cola” store on your right on the corner), turn right, and park. We will be loading right there.

IMG_0669If you can’t find it, just ask someone for “Quince Letras” or “Desayuno de los Pollos/Medina family.” Everyone in the area will know. It is just down the hill from the Cristo Rey Church (photo at left).

Merry Christmas to all! And see you there!

Definitely Feeling like the Holidays!

P1220962Thank you all for so generously helping out Desayuno de los Pollos. Today I went out with Roger, Sue and Dave on a toy shopping spree. We each pitched in several hundred dollars of our own money, but we used some of what so many of you have kindly donated for toys also.

I’m guessing what we purchased today is going to bring smiles to the faces of 500-600 children, babies and teenagers this Christmas. We bought art supplies, games, toy cards, puzzle books, baseball bats, balls… While I felt bad to contribute to ruining our planet by buying cheap stuff from China, it was sooooo much fun to pick out the gifts, trying to balance girl, boy and gender-less items (difficult task, I might add)… I trust it lightens a parent’s worries a bit, as well.

Many thanks to Importaciones Sanfri, who gave us a 20% discount on our purchase, because they knew the toys were going to needy kids. Today’s outing definitely put me in the spirit of the season! Thank you all!

If you would like to contribute to buy toys, chickens, or anything else, please click on the “Donate” button on the upper right of this blog, or email me at dianne@vidamaz.com. We look forward to seeing you all on the 24th around 7 am!