A postman's lot across the world

It is not just the UK suffering from postal strikes this year. Brazil, France, South Africa and Egypt have all seen industrial action by mail workers.

The British mailman's foreign counterparts face common challenges, from the lurking dog to the paper-free world of modern communications, as they explain here to The World Today.

RUBENS MENDES, SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

I've been working for the post for the last 35 years. I deliver letters in the same neighbourhood as I did when I started this job.

So now I have separated all my letters according to the order I'll have to deliver them. I'll put all the letters in my bag. I can only carry 10 kilos [22lb] but before all that, I'll have lunch.

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So now I've had my lunch and I'm just leaving the central office, and I'll catch a bus and I'll have to ride this bus for about 10 to 15 minutes to get to the spot where I start delivering my letters.

I have just arrived at the Grajau neighbourhood, where I will start my deliveries for today.

What I notice is that you don't deliver many letters anymore, actual letters, handwritten. It's a lot of bills and a lot of publicity. I'm going to have a coffee here now. There's coffee waiting for me here every day.

In the office where I work we have not had a strike. There were strikes around Brazil in other regions, in other offices, demanding better wages, but we felt in our office that we didn't have to.

The hardest thing in the job of a postman is to face the dangers that you have in the streets, mainly the dogs.

FRANCK BRAGEOT, PARIS, FRANCE

I have been the postman in the 13th arrondissement of Paris for the last 12 years. I deliver the post on the Boulevard Massena.

I like my job because it allows me to have a lot of independence. The postman is a well-respected person in society. People wait for me to come to their homes each morning and La Poste [France's state-run postal service] still has an advantage over its competitors.

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Our profession hasn't really changed with regards to delivering letters on the ground but all the sorting and preparation, all that has been modernised, and we have new sorting machines. That saves us time and has really developed the post office.

Since the financial crisis, we have had fewer letters to deliver and it's true that over the last decade, with the growth of the internet, there has been a fall in circulation, but we try to adapt to the crisis and the modern world by offering other services. We have to start the way we work all over again.

JAN SKHOSANA, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

I have been in the post office for 15 years. I am 37 years old.

Before, during the apartheid era, they employed mostly white people but presently they're even employing the blacks.

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The post office is busy preparing to develop a new system that is going to make things easier for delivery. They want the delivery standard in South Africa to match the standard in all countries.

The method of delivery is a little bit cheaper than the internet and other forms of communication.

Buses sometimes disturb you because some of the drivers are killers and the other problem is the dogs.

FAROUK MAHER, CAIRO, EGYPT

I go to my work at Hadayek El-Kobba post office at 0900. I gather the mail for my delivery route and then I start stamping it with the day's date. I sort them by putting them in "pigeon holes" according to the street and house number. Afterwards I put them all in my bag. It takes two hours to do this stuff and three or four hours for the street distribution.

I like my job because it's an honest profession, carrying confidential items and delivering them to people by hand. Some letters carry good news and when this happens I'm delighted to see the smiles on people's faces. However when I bring people bad news I try to be sensitive.

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Now, I am going to distribute the letters I have for my route. I have 150 registered and 20 normal letters. Sometimes I share a taxi with my colleagues but usually I take public transportation to get there and I end up wasting a lot of time when I do.

The biggest problem I encounter in my work is incorrect or unknown addresses. I do my best to deliver letters to the right people they are addressed to.

Of course new technology has affected my work - there's been an 80% decline. However I don't think letters will ever disappear completely although most letters we deal with now are from government departments and banks. Only around 10% are personal letters.

When I asked senior colleagues about the number of letters they used to deliver years ago they said they used to take out around 300 letters a day. Nowadays I deliver only about 80 letters a day. You do notice the decline in numbers and that's mostly due to text messages and e-mails.

People will never stop sending letters and the job of the postman will continue for a very long time to come. I've told you that 10% of Egyptian people still send to each other personal e-mails. This is because new technologies are faster, easier and cheaper. Nevertheless I think letters are important and postmen indispensible.