International mail

What do they do to internationally shipped packages that brand-new cardboard boxes don't survive the journey? I just received my box from Dubrovnik, but I didn't recognize it at first because it had been wrapped with brown paper to prevent the box's innards from falling out the gaping holes.

Most of my souvenirs survived the maltreatment intact. There was one casualty, however (and I don't mean the box -- that was a fatality). A large sculpted candle has a few pieces broken off. After I left the post office in Dubrovnik, I started worrying about this candle. I realized that it didn't have much padding around it to prevent it from shaking around in its little box inside the big box. So it shook and bits broke off and other corners got dented and now it's not nearly so pristine as when I purchased it.

A shard of plastic mysteriously appeared in the box and I'm pretty sure it isn't part of anything of mine. So therefore it came *in* through one of the gaping holes before the box got wrapped.

The ceramic elephant survived intact. I'd wrapped several plastic bags around it. ("Nothing says Dubrovnik like an elephant," I joke to the shop employee. And then I look around at all the trite tripe in that store and other souvenir shops nearby and decide that the ceramic elephant was indeed the best souvenir available. It thankfully doesn't have "Dubrovnik" imprinted upon it.)

So, back to my original question. Are the postal workers playing football with the packages, or what? Or lacrosse, perhaps?