Global Reflections

Previously: Leaving Post, Pets, and Home Leave

When we arrive at post, we will be met at the airport by up to three people: an embassy driver, an expediter (if useful at that particular post), and our sponsor. The purpose of the driver is pretty obvious—he’s the man who drives the embassy van or SUV to get us from the airport to our new home. Occasionally, a private driver will be hired or the sponsor will drive his or her personal vehicle, but most personal vehicles aren’t large enough for an incoming family and their luggage.  The expediter is a local whose job is to ease the process of newly arrived (and departing) individuals through customs, immigration, and baggage claim (or through check-in). The expediter usually collects his clients’ passports, hustles his clients to the front of the line, speaks rapidly in the local language, waves the newcomers’ passports around, collects the baggage, and then ushers the newcomers into the presence of their sponsor before handing back all the necessary stamped paperwork and disappearing back into the airport to meet his next client.

The sponsor’s role is a bit more nebulous, but ultimately more important for helping newcomers adjust to post. In most offices at most posts, newcomers end up with two sponsors: an office sponsor and a social/official/CLO-assigned sponsor (CLO being the Community Liaison Office, which generally makes life easier for diplomats and their families at post). The office sponsor helps the incoming employee figure out how things work in the office. The social sponsor helps the incoming employee and family figure out how things work at post in general. One duty of the social sponsor is to meet the newcomers at the airport, take them to their new home, and make sure that everything’s okay there, at least initially. The social sponsor also contacts the newcomers before their arrival to offer any assistance possible—from answering questions to collecting packages that arrive before the newcomer does to soliciting a grocery list and providing the requested supplies so that the newcomer doesn’t have to go to the supermarket immediately upon arrival (of course the newcomer reimburses the sponsor for the groceries). The sponsor also is responsible for getting the newcomer to the supermarket within the first couple of days and usually provides dinner for the new family on the day of arrival. It is expected that the sponsor will make an effort to introduce the newcomers to some people socially and in general be available for the next several weeks to answer questions as they arise.

A good sponsor is vital in helping newcomers adjust to post, and we've had the whole range. Our sponsor here in Cambodia was a great asset to us; she answered questions, picked us up from the airport, bought our starter groceries, left lasagna in our fridge for dinner that first night, took us to the supermarket, and introduced us around. We're still friendly with her, and we're thankful for her assistance. In Egypt, we were both cursed and blessed—our social sponsor was MIA from the start. I think we exchanged a couple of emails before our arrival, but she never solicited a shopping list, and she was out of town on our arrival day. Her supervisor picked us up at the airport, and when we arrived in our apartment, we found her idea of our necessary supplies: sardines, Jewish rye bread, bell peppers, a frozen Cornish game hen, seltzer water … I forget what else. But after the explanation from her supervisor that she was away from the city that day, we never heard another word from her. That was the curse. The blessing was our office sponsor—sponsors, actually, a married couple who both worked in Jeff’s office and who lived across the hall from us. They took us out for dinner the night of our arrival, they had solicited and fulfilled our shopping requests, they took us to the commissary once a week until our car arrived, they answered every question we asked and volunteered useful information about which we didn’t even know to ask … they, and the rest of Jeff’s office, stepped in and fulfilled the social sponsor’s role in a way that I don’t think any single sponsor ever could.

But back to arrival day—newcomers are met by the driver, expediter, and sponsor, and they are taken immediately to their new home. Depending on the time of day and the sponsor’s choices, they may be left there for the day, possibly with dinner in the fridge ready to be reheated, or they may be left for a while to freshen up and rest before going to the sponsor’s home or to a restaurant for dinner. The first order of business, of course, at least for me, is to explore the house. Next comes unpacking suitcases and making beds—I have no hope of feeling at home until the bed is made and ready for sleeping, preferably with my own sheets. Either the embassy General Services (GSO) employees or the sponsor will have unpacked the welcome kit and made the bed, but I typically unmake the bed and replace the sheets with my own, which go with us in the suitcase. Nice sheets are one of the things that make a place feel like home to me. Jeff has his own priorities—he unpacks and sets up any electronics that we brought with us or sent ahead. This will be our first move with Alexa old enough to feel either lost or at home, so it remains to be seen what we’ll need to do straight off to help her feel comfortable. I suspect we’ll make her bed and pull her “babies” out of the suitcases, possibly set up the welcome kit TV or a laptop so she can see that “Uh Oh” (Curious George) is still available to her.

In addition to going to the supermarket within the first few days, Jeff will report to work immediately. For this move, we’re arriving early afternoon on a Friday, and he’s indicated plans to go in that afternoon if at all possible—we don’t want to wait until Monday to obtain his government-provided mobile phone. Sometime the next week, Alexa and I will go in with him and attend a newcomers’ briefing. In this briefing, we’ll hear presentations from the CLO, the health unit, and the RSO (Regional Security Office), as well as from anyone else who has something of relevance to say to newcomers. Afterward, I’ll have my photo taken and my badge made, so that I’ll have unescorted access to the embassy compounds.

While Jeff settles in to his new office, I will be figuring out how to run a household at the new post. This process will be complicated in Kosovo by the fact that we most likely won’t be able to move straight into our permanent housing. [Update: After writing but before publishing this post, we discovered that the situation has changed--we probably will be able to move straight in to our permanent housing. I left this paragraph in for informational purposes, though, as the scenario described here isn't that uncommon.] The embassy maintains a pool of housing that is assigned to employees based on position and family size—position being of importance primarily for those diplomats with representational duties (those who are required to throw parties for local officials must have homes that are suitable for entertaining). Each time a family departs post, their housing undergoes a process known as the “make-ready” in order to prepare it for a newly arriving family: necessary repairs are made, walls are painted, and occasionally furniture or fixtures are upgraded. It happens fairly often that the departure-arrival schedule doesn’t quite leave enough time for the make-ready. When that happens, newcomers are assigned temporary (“temp”) housing. In our case, it isn’t that there wasn’t enough time between someone else’s departure and our arrival; it’s that the Department didn’t allow child dependents into Kosovo for many years because of the violence in Kosovo’s relatively recent history, and now that families with children are being assigned there again, they have to expand their housing pool with residences large enough for larger families. They are entering long-term leases to acquire the necessary residences, but new residences require work before embassy personnel can move in; electrical wiring has to be inspected and often redone to something approximating U. S. code, for example. Our assigned housing is new to the housing pool, and we’ve been told it will be ready “sometime in the April/May time frame.” So we’ll probably be in temp housing for a while. Our temp housing is much closer to the embassy than our permanent housing, which will help with those first couple of weeks, but it will prolong the instability in our lives.

Eventually we will move into our permanent housing. At some point, our UAB will arrive and be delivered to us. If it arrives before we move into our permanent housing, we’ll probably accept it gratefully. After we receive our UAB, we will return the welcome kit to GSO. At some later point, our HHE will arrive. If it arrives before we move into our permanent housing, which is unlikely, it will be held at a warehouse until we’re in a position to accept delivery.

Other than waiting for our things to arrive, it’s a lot like settling into any new home … with the addition of learning a bit of a new language, enough of a new culture to avoid offending people, and usually learning how to drive and cross streets in accordance with new rules.  We try to make friends, both within the embassy community and outside it. We search out a church. We explore the local shops, sights, and foods. We settle in, and it becomes our normal life.

Once we’ve been at a typical two-year post for a year or so, often less, the Department publishes an internal document called the bid list … and the process starts all over. The only difference is that once we’re at a post, we often (but not always) have the option to extend for a year rather than bid on a new post. The decision to extend has to be made before the bid list comes out, so that Jeff’s position isn’t listed as available if it isn’t—we have to decide whether we want to stay where we are for a third year when we still haven’t come close to settling in there, and we don’t even know what the other options will be. In Egypt, we extended and were happy with that decision—at least I was, despite the Revolution and evacuation; Jeff was pretty well ready to leave, I think, even before the Revolution. In Cambodia, extending wasn’t an option. It should be an option in Kosovo, so we’ll be making a decision mere months after our arrival. Whether we extend or not, however, the whole process will begin again less than two years after our arrival.

Foreign service families live in a constant state of change. We always are planning a move, moving, or adjusting to a move; sometimes we’re planning the next move while still trying to adjust to the last one. This is the life we signed up for. It’s stressful. It’s exhausting. It taxes our psychological and social—and sometimes financial—resources. But it’s also exhilarating. It’s eye-opening. It stretches us and grows us and gives us a perspective on the world that I never imagined. So whenever I complain about our lifestyle, about the stresses and changes and difficulties involved, bear with me, because they are real, and they are significant. But also remind me: This is the life we signed up for, and it’s worth it.

It’s worth it because we have the opportunity to experience new cultures at a level deeper than what the average tourist experiences (though not as deep as what the long-term resident experiences). We see sights that most Americans only see on television, in magazines, or on the internet. We get to make friends, not only from the host country, but from so many other countries, as we befriend missionaries, teachers, aid workers, and businessmen. These opportunities and more combine to make this serial expat life an unbelievable, unforgettable experience. Yes, there is stress, and there is change, and there is difficulty—but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, at least to us.

If you’re a friend or family member wanting to know more about our lives and to understand the terminology we toss around, I hope this series has helped you with that. If you’re considering a foreign service career, or if you’re a new foreign service officer preparing for your first post, I hope this series has helped you gain an idea of what to expect—and I hope that as you go through the process for the first time, that you realize that you’re not crazy; it really is stressful and exhausting, and it’s completely normal for you to wonder at times whether this lifestyle is worth all the hassle. For some people, it isn’t. For me, it is. For you? That’s a decision you’ll have to make.

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Anatomy of a Foreign Service Move, Part:

1: Introduction and Post Assignment

2: Pre-Packout Preparation

3: Packout

4: Leaving Post, Pets, and Home Leave

5: New Beginnings

On the last day of the packout (or the first day, or before it begins, or after it ends, depending on the post and your requested time), the embassy delivers a welcome kit. The welcome kit (so named because it’s waiting at your new home to “welcome” you when you first arrive at post) is a collection of basic household necessities: sheets, towels, dishes, pots and pans, silverware, shower curtains, iron and ironing board, broom and dustpan, mop and bucket … the things that you need in order to set up a functional household. There are regional differences in what is provided—in Cambodia, the welcome kit includes a rice cooker and a drying rack, neither of which was provided in Egypt; in Egypt, coasters were provided, as were basic consumables like toilet paper, a roll of paper towels, and a small bottle of dish soap. These items are owned by the embassy and are maintained as loaners (other than the consumables; we don’t have to give those back!) for foreign service families to use before their things arrive and after their things depart.

I usually unpack the welcome kit. There’s an inventory list that I go through to make sure everything’s there—if anything’s missing after we leave, we get charged for it, so it’s in our interest to make sure the list is accurate. I spend a day doing laundry, washing dishes, making beds, and finding a home for all the little things that are included. (The welcome kit is delivered clean and ready to use, but I wash everything anyway … I think I got that from my father.) It’s important to me to get the house feeling as much like home as possible before Alexa returns from the hotel … oh, who am I kidding? It’s important to me to make the house feel as homey as possible for my own sake.

After the return from the hotel, a new adjustment period begins. Jeff and I do fairly well; we’re adults, we know what’s going on, and this is just part of the life we’ve chosen. It’s harder for Alexa. Last time, she was young enough not to notice and not to care that things had disappeared. This time, she notices that things look very, very different around here. Her first priority on entering the house was to find the cats; she hadn’t seen them in almost a week, and she wanted to pet them. Immediately upon seeing them, she turned to me and said “Uh oh! We need to put the green carpet back!” The green carpet is a wonderfully soft and beautiful rug that we had made here by Carpets for Communitiesto put in the playroom. After we explained to Alexa that the carpet—just like the toys we’d discussed all week at the hotel—had left already for our new house, and we would get it back after it got to our new house, she looked around some more and said “Uh oh! The TV is gone!” And so it went. “The books are gone!” “The Daddy Giraffe is gone!” “The cushions are gone!” By the end of the night, she pointed at the white bath mat and said “Uh oh!” I said “What’s wrong, Sweet Pea? Is it that the bath mat is white instead of brown?”  Her response was heartbreaking—while sniffling and speaking bravely as if she was trying to convince herself, she said “The brown one is gone. It is going to the new house. We will get it back at the new house.” This type of statement has been made over and over in the week since the packout.

In addition to things being different at home, it is during this time that it becomes real that we’re leaving. We make our rounds saying good-bye to favorite places and people. We aren’t as attached to the places here as we were to the places in Egypt, but we do have good friends who will be remaining here. Our playgroup had a Kosovo-themed party on Friday to honor Alexa and me. Jeff made his farewell speech at the embassy’s all-hands meeting on the same day. I have a feeling our weekly Bible study meetings will take on a nostalgic air for us in our two remaining meetings. (The day after I typed this paragraph, I was surprised by a very sweet and nostalgic time of sharing and prayer at our next meeting—all focused on our family, what we mean to the group, and prayers for our transition to Kosovo.) And of course, the hardest will be watching our housekeeper and her son say good-bye to Alexa … although Alexa does not yet understand the separation that’s coming, they do understand what our departure means for their relationship with her, and I occasionally see my housekeeper swallow hard, blink back tears, and give Alexa an extra long hug.

It’s a bittersweet time for us: we’re excited about the possibilities and new adventures awaiting us at our new post, but we’re sad to be leaving good friends here. It was this way before we left the States for Egypt; it was this way before we left Egypt for Cambodia; and I’m certain that it will be this way again when we leave Kosovo for … wherever we go next.

At some point during this time, the car is picked up and shipped to our new post. We use or give away the last of our consumables. We dispose of those remaining items that we aren’t taking with us but were not able to get rid of before the packout. Embassy employees come in to inventory the furniture and make certain that no embassy possessions were packed out with our things—if they were, we have to pay for them. They check for damage “more than normal wear and tear” and bill us for the cost of reupholstering cat-scratched furniture or fixing other damage.

Then, of course, comes departure day. We experience all the things that everyone else experiences before a big trip: the planning, the packing, the weighing of the suitcases. We also have to corral the cats into their crates and attach the food and water dispensers to them. We have an embassy driver, not a taxi, take us to the airport, and sometimes an expediter meets us there. (An expediter outbound really isn’t necessary, though in Egypt we hired—at our own expense—one that specializes in pet export to help us get the cats onto the plane with minimal bureaucratic hassle, as we’d heard horror stories about “changing regulations”—often code for “give me baksheesh.”) Then comes the flight … or flights, I should say. And then we land—usually in the United States.

Many foreign service families have pets. However, they are not official dependents on official travel orders, so the Department does absolutely nothing to assist in their transportation arrangements. We pay all the extra costs associated with their move. The airlines increasingly seem to want to make it as difficult as possible to move pets—my Facebook status when we finally had booked an itinerary and confirmed the cats in the cargo hold was: “We have flights--and so do the cats! We had to switch not only days, but flights ... and layover cities ... and airlines ... but we have flights! Big thanks to my ‘patience of a saint’ husband for dealing with the headaches, the stupid people, and the nonsensical rules.” It took three booked itineraries before we finally found one where the cats could come with us. Of course we could have hired a pet relocation company to handle all the hassle for us, but that would have cost thousands of dollars. Although we never would "re-home"--or worse, outright abandon--Cleo and Isis because we were moving to a new country, I no longer wonder why others often make that choice.

Usually, we go to the United Statesbetween posts. The most common pattern is to leave post in the spring or early summer, go to the U. S. for processing and several weeks of home leave, then report to the next post in the fall. That’s the schedule we were on between Egypt and Cambodia, and the schedule we’ll be on when we leave Kosovo.

It’s not the schedule we’re on this time, though, because this move is a bit unusual. We arrived here in October 2011, so we should be leaving here in October 2013, spending some time in the States, and then reporting to Kosovo in November or December 2013. However, we were asked to report to Kosovo early. That puts us leaving here in April—this month—and puts us closer to the typical spring-departure, fall-arrival schedule. However, we just went on R&R in December, and we wanted to spread out our trips to America a bit more than that, and we wanted to be in the States over the summer, if possible, when our niece and nephews are out of school. Plus, we knew that the Department wanted Jeff in Kosovo as soon as possible, not spending several weeks in the U. S. while his office in Kosovo remains short-staffed.

So we made the special request to defer home leave until the summer, and it was granted. Instead of spending a month or more in the U. S. for processing and home leave now, we spent an extra week there in December for processing, and we’ll go back over the summer for home leave. This schedule works out very well for us, because in addition to having more time with the children in our extended family, we also will have a couple of months in Kosovo before we go back. That time in Kosovo will help us make more informed choices about the purchases that we’ll inevitably make—new clothing, shoes, items that haven’t even occurred to us yet that we’ll want there that we don’t want here.

And it will help in organizing the Consumables shipment. Kosovo is one of the places—as is Cambodia—where the decision has been made that many consumable items that Americans consider basics just aren’t available. I’m not sure that assessment remains correct for Cambodia; things are available, just not consistently, and at very high prices. But we received an email from the Community Liaison Office in Kosovo listing some things that are not available there at all: peanut butter, canned tuna fish, baking soda, baking powder, coffee creamer, all but a few local spices, as well as many other items that we consider fairly basic … some of those things we can get through the APO/DPO mail system, but not all of them. So we’re authorized a special shipment (of limited weight; I forget the limit) to consist only of consumable items. When we came to Cambodia, we guessed what to put in our Consumables shipment, and in many cases, we guessed wrong: we included things that were available with reasonable consistency and for reasonable prices, and we left out things that aren’t often available or that are available only at exorbitant prices. (Don’t ask me how much deodorant costs here. Seriously—don’t ask, especially if you’re eating or drinking something on which you could choke.) In this case, since we’ll be in Kosovo for a while before going to the States, it should be much easier to fill our Consumables shipment with items that really aren’t available at all or for reasonable prices in Kosovo, items that we really do want or need there, and items that we can’t get from online vendors through the mail.

Next Up: New Beginnings

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Anatomy of a Foreign Service Move, Part:

1: Introduction and Post Assignment

2: Pre-Packout Preparation

3: Packout

4: Leaving Post, Pets, and Home Leave

5: New Beginnings

Previously: Pre-Packout Preparation

On packout day, Jeff and I try to arrive at the house early. We each have notebooks and pens. We’re as prepared as we can be, but there are still uncertainties. Although we know what to expect procedure-wise, we have no idea what to expect from our moving crew. Will we have a crew of 4, 8, or 20? Will they stay together, break into two groups, or have to be prevented from breaking into three or more groups? Will they be conscientious and pack our things as carefully as if they were the owners, or will they do as little as possible and potentially put our things at risk? In our three moves, we’ve had both extremes: the American crew was very good, and we thought at the time that they were the gold standard; the Egyptian crew was atrocious; and the Cambodian crew overwhelmed us with their skill, their conscientiousness, and their professionalism—they are the gold standard, as far as I'm concerned.

The crew always consists of at least four men, usually five to seven men. One of them is the crew supervisor, and often, a manager will come too—I don’t recall if a manager came in the States, but one dropped by once or twice in Egypt, and one was here full-time in Cambodia (I think it was a requirement here because of language differences).

The procedure always has the same structure, though details may vary. The first priority always is to pack and weigh the UAB. The second priority is to pack the Storage. This procedure clears the way for the bulk of the packing—the HHE—to be free and clear, without worrying about mixing my piles.

In our previous moves, the crew supervisor packed the UAB, with or without help from one or two others, under Jeff’s supervision, while the rest of the crew got started on the Storage, under my supervision. In this most recent packout, the crew preferred to stay together, so everyone worked on the UAB, and when it was done, everyone worked on the Storage. This preference to stay together made it incredibly easy for Jeff and me to supervise—in the past, I’ve had to chase men down and tell them that they can’t work in that room yet, that they have to stay in one room where I can see them all; but this time, I never had to go chasing after anyone, and Jeff and I even were able to switch off for bathroom breaks without leaving anyone unsupervised.

Why the emphasis on supervision? Well … because this is our stuff and these are strangers. I believe that most people are mostly trustworthy. But some aren’t, and I don’t know which ones those are. So no one gets trusted until I know them better. Especially since even basically trustworthy people may have moments of weakness when faced with small items of relatively large value (in developing countries, an item worth $20 is valuable!) and a lack of supervision around those items. Plus, close supervision of the movers allows us to catch our mistakes before they become unfixable—if we’re watching each item go into the box, we’ll recognize that that charging cord shouldn’t go, and we’ll notice if the trash can still has trash in it (there have been cases of foreign service families opening their shipments to discover that the trash cans were still full, and the contents had been rotting in shipping containers for months). We also can verify that our things are packed appropriately; Jeff has given many lessons on the vulnerability points of certain electronics. Supervision also means that we can protect our safe areas from overzealous packers—the American ones were good in this regard, and the Cambodians were exceptional, but the Egyptians had to be told multiple times “No, put that back! Don’t pack any of that!”

Once the UAB is packed and weighed (giving us the chance to take items out or add more items, depending on how good our planning was), and the Storage is out of the way, it becomes more of a free-for-all: If it’s there and it doesn’t have an “X” on it, into a box it goes. Most of the embassy shippers have enough experience to recognize embassy furniture, embassy transformers, embassy lamps, and other things that stay with the house, so they usually avoid those things on their own—though Jeff or I watch constantly to be sure. The house becomes a mess of boxes (filled, made but empty, and not yet made), white paper, bubble wrap, tape … our stuff gradually disappears and is replaced by brown boxes, ideally with contents and room labeled, but always with Jeff’s full name and a number. The numbers are used for inventory control: the supervisor creates a master list with each box’s number, contents, and weight. In the past, Jeff and I have created our own inventory lists with box numbers and a more detailed description of the contents, as well as the box’s weight—we didn’t bother with that this time, as we’ve never actually used our lists in the past; they usually get set aside during unpacking because it takes so much longer to actually inventory everything as we unpack it, and we never manage to write down all the contents anyway, and we see the boxes get sealed in the crates, so it’s very uncommon for anything to go missing during transit. But we do value the copy of the master list we receive from the supervisor—we use it to make sure all the boxes make a reappearance on delivery day, and for some items that we want to unpack first, we can use the contents list to figure out which box they’re in.

This whole process takes anywhere from two to three days. Theoretically, it could take one, but that hasn’t happened for us. Most of our things usually get packed in one day, and then day two consists of putting the boxes in the crates (called lift vans), putting the lift vans in the truck (unless they were constructed and filled in the truck to begin with), and going over the paperwork. This time, it took a full two days to put everything in boxes. Day three was devoted entirely to constructing, filling, and loading the lift vans. Jeff and the manager met for a few moments on day four to go over the paperwork. It took longer this time both because we had more things, and because this crew took exceptional care to pack things well—they constructed boxes for a perfect fit around furniture, speakers, and other large or oddly-shaped items; they carefully supported our double-glass framed papyri with cardboard, paper, and bubble wrap before putting them in specially made boxes before putting them in specially made crates complete with extra styrofoam padding; they took the time to fill in around fragile items (like a small sculptures made from camel bone) with broken down styrofoam, as packing peanuts were not available. 

However long it takes, it always ends the same way: our stuff boxed up and trucked off to the warehouse to await customs clearance and loading onto the ship or plane, and us checking out of the hotel and moving into a shell of a house.

Up Next: Leaving Post, Pets, and Home Leave

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Anatomy of a Foreign Service Move, Part:

1: Introduction and Post Assignment

2: Pre-Packout Preparation

3: Packout

4: Leaving Post, Pets, and Home Leave

5: New Beginnings

Previously: Introduction and Post Assignment

In the two or three months before the packout (the day when our stuff leaves), I inevitably make lists. A list of things to do, which at this point often becomes a list of lists I need to make. A list of questions I need answered, often because the answers will determine what objects or actions go on which other lists. A list of things I need to buy because we’ll need them at our next post. A list of things I know (or at least believe) we won’t need at our next post—which then gets divided into lists of things to give away, things to sell, and things to put into long-term storage in the United States. A list of things I want to buy from our current location as keepsakes, memorabilia, and general “treasures.” A list of things I still want to do at our current location. Lists of what will go in the air freight, the sea freight, and our suitcases—these lists must be done early.

A week or two before packout, we have the Pre-Packout Survey. Representatives from the shipping company—or companies, if two companies are bidding against each other—visit our home. I give them the grand tour as they scribble in their notepads. They make note of our pictures, our carpets, our furniture (only a few pieces are ours; the rest belongs to the embassy and stays with the house). They open drawers and look in closets. I point out items that require special handling (which usually causes tape measures to appear) or that are heavier than they look. The constant questions are “Is this going to your next post? Is this going to storage? Can I look in here?” The purpose of this visit is to allow the company to get an idea of just how much stuff they will be packing up and shipping. How many boxes will they need to bring? How many people? How many crates do they expect to fill? Will we be under our weight allowance, or do they need to be prepared for us to be over? How much will it cost them to ship our stuff—and so how much will they need to charge the Department for their services?

At some point, I start checking things off my lists. I go to all those touristy places that I meant to go to all along but somehow never got around to. We buy the paintings—it always seems to be wall art, for us; we love the lamps and quilts and sculptures that we buy, but the must-haves always include wall art—that we’ve been considering for months, and we even leave enough time to have them framed. I give away or sell a few items. Then, as the time shortens, I give or sell some more. Finally, we have a big purge … or this time, a few big purges … often interspersed with last-minute shopping expeditions. (We gave away 200 pounds of books—surely we can add two super-light, super-cute quilted floor cushions decorated with jungle animals!)

But the biggest, arguably most important, lists remain untouched until just a day or two before the packout.

In our pre-cat, pre-Alexa days, the pre-packout craziness was diluted over a period of a week or two. However, cats love to climb, jump, and perch on precarious stacks of stuff, and toddlers—particularly those who are a bit change-resistant—don’t like to see single items go anywhere other than where they belong; they especially object to the large-scale rearranging that happens before the packout, and they tend to take items away from where Mama put them and put them back where they go … or anywhere else they can reach that isn’t where Mama wants them. So this time, we checked into a hotel two days before the packout—at our choice, and at our expense; the embassy assumes that you can live in your house throughout the packout, which is possible but impractical for us—and our housekeeper watched Alexa there during the days of the packout and for the day before it, when we destroyed the house.

Ok, so we don’t actually destroythe house. We just destroy the home-like atmosphere of it.

Remember those most important lists that are untouched until a day or two before the packout? Well, those are the “what goes where” lists. As a foreign service family, we are moved from post to post by the federal government. We have allowances for how much stuff we can take with us, and if we go over those limits, we have to pay the excess cost. Most of it goes by sea, because that’s the most economical way, but we do get a limited allowance for air freight, so that we can receive necessities more quickly. The shipment that goes by sea is referred to as the HHE (Household Effects), and the shipment that goes by air is the UAB (Unaccompanied Air Baggage). The government will ship a total of 7,200 pounds of freight per family. Most of that typically is HHE, but the UAB comes out of that as well—the exact weight limit for the UAB depends on family size (250 pounds for the employee, 200 for the first dependent, 150 for the second, and 100 for each additional dependent). We also are allowed to use an unlimited portion of our weight allowance to ship items back to the United States for long-term storage, so long as the total amount in storage does not exceed 10,800 pounds. So my four most important lists are lists of what goes into the suitcases to travel with us, what goes into the UAB, what goes into Storage, and what goes into the HHE (though I never actually write out an HHE list, which would consist of only one entry: “everything else”).

The day before the packout, we physically move things around the house so that instead of UAB and Storage lists, we have UAB and Storage piles. (The suitcase pile, ideally, is already at the hotel, although we inevitably find more things during the sorting—and during the packout—that we realize should be at the hotel.)

Because it’s prohibitively expensive to go over our UAB weight limits, we have to be judicious in what we goes UAB. We have to make some trade-offs: Do we put in some more clothes or shoes, or do we put in an extra trash can to use in the bathroom? (Trash can.) Do we take Alexa’s bike, or more of her books? (The bike.) Can we get by without the cats’ big scratching post, or will that just cost us in furniture damage? (Scratching post goes.) Which pots and pans are necessities, and which are luxuries? (Take half.) Do we take our Select Comfort bed, which is the only mattress in the world on which both Jeff and I can sleep comfortably, or do we leave it out and have more room for other things? (The mattress goes, although the platform has to go HHE both because of the weight and because the pieces are too big for the air freight boxes.)

I’m a bit obsessive when it comes to the UAB … I literally weigh everything and record it, ending up with a list of precisely what is in the UAB and how much it weighs. I have a food scale with which I weigh the smaller items, and we have a bathroom scale with which I weigh the bulkier items. My goal is to get as close as possible to 90% of our weight allowance, since we have to allow for the packaging materials. I’m very proud of myself with this move—once all was said and done, we were 10 pounds under our UAB weight allowance, the closest we’ve ever come to perfect.

I put the UAB on and around the dining room table. Things that are going into Storage, this time, went on and around the coffee table in the living room—except for the big items, like a few pieces of furniture from Alexa’s nursery set and a couple of papyrus paintings that were still on the walls. Those items were noted carefully in my notebook, to which I referred obsessively during the packout.

I also create “safe areas,” marked with pieces of paper with a huge “X.” Those areas this time consisted of the shelving units in the kitchen and hall, the guest bathroom, and Jeff’s nightstand drawers (which he hadn’t had time to go through). The safe areas become the temporary home of things that should not go into any shipment but that didn’t go to the hotel for one reason or another—bulky items like Alexa’s stroller or car seat case, food items we’ll still be using after the packout, Ziploc bags that we want available during the packout so that screws and other small hardware can be contained after things like the crib are disassembled. We also throw in anything we come across during the packout that we realize should have gone to the hotel—Kindles, phone charging cords, cameras, a clothesline that I’ll use in place of my drying rack.

While I’m destroying the house, Jeff destroys the electronics. He unplugs all the components of the home entertainment system, carefully notes which power brick goes with which component, what wire goes where to connect everything to everything else in the most efficient configuration. He handles the components that require some care—disconnecting the speaker wire without damaging any connectors, for example. He does some prep work on the TV console, which is specially designed for efficiency and accessibility, but which is more fragile than most similar-appearing furniture. He makes sure we save (unpacked) all the home computer network components—marking “X”s on post-it notes and slapping them onto the wireless router, the internet company’s box, the embassy’s transformers, the power strip, and all the other little boxes that I have no idea what they are. He makes sure that we have the velvet bags in which the speakers were shipped ready for re-use, and the foam that was packed around the TV (the box itself survived two moves but was judged no-longer-reusable upon arrival in Cambodia).

Finally, as ready as we can be, we head back to the hotel. It’s important to get as good a night’s rest as possible before the packout begins the next day, as the first day of packout often is one of the most stressful days of the whole process.

Up Next: Packout

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Anatomy of a Foreign Service Move, Part:

1: Introduction and Post Assignment

2: Pre-Packout Preparation

3: Packout

4: Leaving Post, Pets, and Home Leave

5: New Beginnings