\n<\/p>\n
Lehde, Germany — <\/span>Andrea Bunar had been waiting for months for the arrival of spring and the day when she could finally deliver mail again through the narrow waterways of the Spreewald Forest delta southeast of Berlin.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the 55-year-old German postal worker again stood behind his boat, and used a long oar to propel, steer and steer his boat through the shallow water.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beginning of the season is always special for me,\u201d Bunar said, as she boarded the yellow barge in her postal worker uniform.<\/p>\n “After the long winter break, I enjoy being back in nature and on the water.”<\/p>\n Bunar has been delivering mail and packages to the villagers of Lehde, located about 100 kilometers (about 60 miles) southeast of Berlin, for 14 years.<\/p>\n During the winter she brings mail by car to farms and homes, but this is often cumbersome because the roads are icy and takes longer than in the summer. From April to October, she returns to her nine-metre-long (29-foot-long) barge and from Monday to Saturday drops off mail in mailboxes that the residents of Lehde have placed right on the river bank.<\/p>\n She also sells tickets to residents living on remote routes and they can send their mail with her.<\/p>\n The Spreewald is famous for its 300 kilometers (about 185 miles) network of waterways, many of which run through lush forests and wetlands. As an inland delta, the River Spree, which also flows through Berlin, flows into hundreds of small canals in the forest.<\/p>\n It was also designated a UNESCO biosphere to protect its ecosystem, including the region’s diverse fauna and flora.<\/p>\n Lehde is the only place in Germany where mail is delivered by boat. Actually, this village has been receiving mail through boat for 129 years.<\/p>\n Before this, villagers would pick up their mail once a week on Sunday after church service. But as people moved from the countryside to the cities, the need for more long-distance communications increased, and thus the German postal service began delivering mail more frequently \u2013 and in the case of Lehde, which looks like a lush, Teutonic miniature version of Venice, began delivering it by boat.<\/p>\n Bunar delivers about 600 letters and 80 packages every week. He needed about two hours to steer his barge through the 8-kilometre (about 5-mile) route.<\/p>\n Lately, there have been fewer letters and more packages for postal workers.<\/p>\n \u201cI’ve already delivered an e-scooter, a lawn mower and a fridge \u2013 sometimes my barge feels like a small container ship,\u201d he said. On Wednesday, his first day of spring, he had to bring a large saw to a resident \u2013 \u200b\u200bin addition to the usual bills, registered mail and letters.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has always been my dream job,\u201d Bunar said with a smile. “It’s very relaxing to be on the water \u2013 it slows down life.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lehde, Germany — Andrea Bunar had been waiting for months for the arrival of spring and the day when she could finally deliver mail again through the narrow waterways of the Spreewald Forest delta southeast of Berlin. On Wednesday, the 55-year-old German postal worker again stood behind his boat, and used a long oar to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[717,11130,637,7109,4255,8479,8066,26871],"class_list":{"0":"post-108913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-boat","9":"tag-delivered","10":"tag-german","11":"tag-mail","12":"tag-months","13":"tag-remote","14":"tag-village","15":"tag-warmer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108923,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108913\/revisions\/108923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}