Sometimes you have to live in a culture a while before some things become obvious and you wonder why you didn´t see it before. Such was the case in a recent 8th grade class.
Students were required to read a passage where a character needed to fill out a form with his name and address on it. 8th Grade students then were required to fill out the same form for themselves in English. The name went ok, but the address was a real problem.
Only about half of the class had any idea of what their address was. Others knew the name of the street on which they lived, but nothing more. The it hit me that there is no mail service here. All mail is picked up at the central post office. This begs the question of when to go to the post office because how would you know if you had mail or not?
The non-existence of mail delivery creates an entire chain reaction of other problems just in the school setting alone. How do you communicate with parents in writing? In a culture where there are a lot of things floating around in the first place, it is good to have school communication in writing. When I explained that in the USA, a teacher could mail a note to parents or they could email them immediately about the child´s performance, they were in shock.
Getting mail, even junk mail, is something we take for granted. Imagine absolutely no mail service!! Or, maybe you can´t.
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I can understand how kids would not know their address. When children are registered for school is an address part of the information they must provide? I guess there is very little colorful advertising called "junk mail". Do homes have phones? Talk about getting away from it all as we know it ! WOW Don
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