Africa is always good for surprises, mostly the bad way, but sometimes really positive.
I’m actually in Bohicon / Benin on the way to deep Africa and was already aware the office would be closed, but wanted to know where it is.
Very boring but that’s my closest Post Office from my home.
The inside
Greetings from California
I love this topic and looking at all the beautiful and interesting post offices!
Last September, I went to Monaco and stumbled upon this beautiful post office:
It was sadly closed, so I had to get my stamps from the tourist office, but it was still beautiful to look at!
Also, I went to Switzerland last year as well and was able to send some cards from the “smallest post office in Switzerland” in a tourist shop in the “Heididorf” - in the middle of the Swiss Alps!
Here another small post office it is just at the main entrance of the university of Parakou (biggest city in the north of Benin). Only one woman is working there. The blue door at the right goes to the post boxes. Yes they don’t have postman who deliver the post, you need to have a post box. And btw. there aren’t any mailboxes, you have to bring your post during opening times to the post office.
Maybe the clears is wearing gloves for hygiene reasons? Paper is also very drying for skin when handling it all day.
I live in a leafy suburb of Colombo called Cinnamon Gardens. True to its name many years ago this whole area was a giant cinnamon plantation before British colonial settlers started to move in. Today the cinnamon trees are long gone and where they stood wide open roads and suburban houses. It’s rapidly becoming more commercialized and most of the old residents are moving out.
My Post Office established in 1905 is a living museum. It is an Edwardian institution through and through. A throwback to the days of Colonial Ceylon when the post was an integral means of communication and when letters were delivered up to four times a day by uniformed smartly clad postmen in their livery by foot and by cycle.
A big telegraph operation center was integrated with the post office and together they formed the epicentre of this town.
I have boxes of postcards from as early as 1900 written by family members writing home from far-off corners of empire, from land as well as onboard merchant steamers. All these have all traveled through this outfit that is the postal service.
Today the enterprise is shadow of its former self. The old building stays. Lending an almost quaint village like feel to this rapidly urbanising quarter of the city, my Post Office is a stunning old dame, Brick Red and white this post office is a stunning two-storied building with the Postmasters quarters above and the offices below. Lined with Burma Teak creaky flooring and old chandelier and walls adorned with old moustached postmasters; stepping inside takes you back 100 years in time to a time of Empire.
The Post Box is a large worn out mammoth wooden chest with a brass lock made in far off Edinburgh and faint traces of Edward the VIII.
The post is still collected in worn-out leather bags and sorted by hand.
Franking Machines are not commonplace here. We like to do it the old-fashioned way of stamping with messy India Ink and a worn-out stamper.
On the outside the building is an attractive porte-cochere made for horse drawn carriages; a very practical architectural feature in the sun and rain of tropical Colombo.
The elegant but functional building was designed in far-off England. The plans approved by the civil servants in Whitehall and brought to life by the Public Works Department of Ceylon. Ceylon (or Sri Lanka as it is now known) was a model colony and pride of the empire. The building was naturally built in flamboyant style with no expenses spared with liberal use of Ionic columns, decorated windowsills, and intricate oriental touches on the arches. The whole thing lies in a large manicured garden of shady coconut trees.
With falling revenues and not many people using the post office is an eventuality that old buildings like this will have to make room for sleeker more cramped Post Offices but for now, my walk to the Post Office takes me back in time to the good old days.
Hellenic Post, Kypselis Square, Athens Greece. Almost all post offices in Greece are nowdays housed in ugly buildings.
Thanks for the hint about the post office at Heididorf – I now have to get there for a postal visit!!
the people at our local post offices wear glove (blue ones) in the morning when sorting out the mail. i’d ask before, but was some time ago and don’t remember why they use them.
Thank you for sharing Kostas . I was the only one so far. And yes ours is ugly too in Nea Smyrni
Thank you Thisura for this post about your post office, your writing and photographs really bring it to life! Now I can really visualize where the mail from you is coming from.
Deble
The pictures of the post office looks like a pink cupcake. I liked where you intertwined the fading history of British rule with the old bags and messy India ink of the present. It brings depth to “a day in a life” of Thisura.
Thank you for sharing your story.
@TazocinWilson
I guess by now the Business Express box is gone. I thnik this service was abolished by ELTA. In the past I used Business Express envelopes to send invoices to customers.
I have just heared that the poor post office has been removed on 10th of February.
I wish I had a picture inside. Our town (Hanna, Alberta, Canada) is small - about 2,000 people. We don’t get home delivery, all of our mail goes to the post office and we go there to pick it up.
Well, I don´t have to explain what to do on this thread, right? 
This is in Friedberg (Hessen) by the way.
No our post offices are ugly in Athens
Two years later after I have shared a picture of this mail box, finally in one of my visits in Cyprus capital, Nicosia I have found by mistake a mail box with the royal cypher of King George V. Here is the photo of it.
