July 24, 2005

JMAAW##

That's going to be my new postcode (the ## will be replaced by whatever number they assign to the Liguanea post office).

In today's article in the Sunday Business Observer, the new system is explained.

The JM is for Jamaica; the A is for the zone that my parish (St Andrew) falls in, and the AW is for the first and last letters of the parish name (they don't count the 'St'); the number is for the number assigned to the post office where my mail goes. So if Liguanea is post office #10, then my new post code will be JMAAW10

Now in Jamaica, there is mail delivery through much of the island. I was therefore surprised when I went to live in Grenada, because I had to get a post box. That was 1997 and I still have it even though I'm not there permanently.

When I was at university, I had a Trinidadian friend who lived on Eastern Main Road in Tunapuna. So when she was giving me her mailling address, I asked her for the number of the house. She said "you don't need that. Everybody knows us".

Post codes fascinate me. The British ones are the ones I'm very familiar with. And it's great that you can actually descipher (that spell wrong) what street a house is on, just from the post code. So NG2 9JA was Queens Road in Beeston, Nottingham.

I worked at a call centre that handled store credit card applications. The store clerk would call to check if a person's credit was ok, and I had to take the house number and the post code and input it in the computer and the credit report would come up. So my house number was 292, therefore I'd use 292 NG2 9JA and the computer would know that it's Queen's Road. Just fascinating.

So I'll have fun with these Jamaican post codes. First though, I have to get my hands on the numbers assigned to various post offices in the city.

Posted by yamfoot at July 24, 2005 01:11 PM
Comments

An interesting hobby you got there.

Posted by: Marc at July 24, 2005 01:34 PM

Jamacia making a break through. Good for you guys. In B'dos the mail is still delivered door to door, and like yuh Grenedian friend, nuh need fuh street or house numba, ccause de postman know who evabodie is and even when dey is guess, he gine know. MOst de time, de postman fuh dat area, grew up in de area so he knows.

Posted by: Campfyah at July 24, 2005 02:42 PM

Postman nuh come up here so...have a box a C. Spring P. O.

Posted by: Dr. D. at July 24, 2005 05:59 PM