You’ve got mail! Soon, anyway.

Yesterday, I had a wonderful afternoon visiting with a colleague and his wife and son. The day consisted of great conversation, a fun almost 2-year-old, the discovery of a really nice and serene park (on a very low pollution day, too!)  and some awesome chicken pesto.

For someone who doesn’t get out much, it was fantastic.

And yet it wasn’t quite the highlight of the week.

Sadly, the highlight was something that will likely appear to be mundane and trite to anyone else, but it’s a life-changer here.

I do a lot of Peace Corps question answering, and one of the questions that came up this week was what were the similarities and differences between Peace Corps and foreign service.

My answer on the similarities is simply that they are both overseas (although FS does have a lot of domestic positions) and federal.

But the differences. They’re legion. I just ordered a case of Junior Mints from Amazon, which will be delivered to me via diplomatic pouch. That doesn't happen in PC. I also have a Target order coming to me, and I still subscribe to Netflix.

And now, thanks to a colleague, I have learned that Walmart delivers groceries to the pouch.

This is big. I already have a weakness for Amazon and its availability of Junior Mints and Slap Ya Mama!, although they are considerably overpriced and, in the instance of the Junior Mints, only available in bulk.

And now my colleague tipped me off that customers can order non-perishable groceries online and have them shipped. I cannot get liquids shipped to me, but I can get quasi-liquids, like toothpaste.

The best part is you can order one of whatever it is, and the prices are the same as they are in the store.

Sugar, which I did not include in my first $60 order, which I hope to have by the second week in June, is about $2.50 or something for four pounds. Here, it’s a staggering $3 or so for a half a kilo. I do get a cost of living allowance to help offset that, but if I can get the stuff for less, why not?

The food is also the American version of whatever it is. In some cases, like the case of Cheetoes, that’s really good. Cheetoes here are vile.

Of course, like Target, you can also order pretty much everything else, too. The bizarreness in that is that on some items, you’re ordering from a U.S. company that imported the stuff from here and now it’s being shipped back. And it’s still cheaper than it would cost on the local economy.

So yeah, between that and the fact that I ate meat twice this week, I’m not in PC anymore.