Since everyone in the U.S. is talking about the post office - w/ good reason - let me tell you about how post works in Bosnia. So, there’s technically 3 post offices in BiH; each catering to one of the main ethnic groups. But none of them are especially reliable or affordable.

Now, you’d think there would be a booming private delivery industry as a result. And those companies do exist but they’re, again, unaffordable for most & their delivery times are not much better, what with the rotten & even impassable roads across most of the country.

So, what do many ordinary/limited-income folks do? Well, you’re constantly on the look-out for family/friends headed out to wherever you need something sent. But that’s random so what you do, actually, is head down to the inter-city bus station.

Because there’s minimal rail service in the country, most people travel by bus from town-to-town, if they can’t drive or afford a cab service. So, you go down to the bus station & you have two options: one, ask the driver to deliver your letter/parcel to someone along the line...

...and you maybe spot him a few bucks for the trouble. Some of the bus lines offer delivery services but that’s a recent phenomenon. Most people tho go the honor code route: you find a trustworthy face & you ask them to deliver your mail.

Keep in mind, this a country that experienced a genocide barely 25 yrs ago, large-scale intercommunal violence. Despite this, levels of social trust are so high that you’ll literally hand someone your life in an envelope & believe they’ll give it to Nana Alida at the other end.

I’ve done this, almost everyone has. I’ve carried sensitive personal docs for random people who’ve approached me on the street in, say, Dubrovnik & taken them to Sarajevo. It’s a remarkable level of trust & social dependency, necessitated by large-scale institutional failure.

Point being, there’s a incredible humanity in it all, & it has a certain kind of old world charm. But it’s also ridiculous, risky & no way to actually run a country. Protect your post office, America. It’s a vital institution, critical to good governance & democracy itself. /x