…UAB

We received our UAB (air shipment) late last week, just in time for the weekend, and just in time for this week’s Round Up theme “I wish I’d put… in my UAB,” hosted this week by Jill at Run 2 New Places .

On Monday, they (that mysterious bureaucratic “they”) hinted that our shipment was in the country, and we might get it later in the week, but we didn’t hold out much hope. We’d been told the week before that a part of our HHE (boat shipment) had arrived as well, but that was later corrected to say it had arrived _near_ the port, more or less, and may be on the ground, or the boat, or neither.

So, when they called Thursday morning it was with some surprise that they offered to deliver before noon that day, and 45 minutes later they arrived at our door, bearing 4 large boxes labeled “Unknown Sender.” My housekeeper and I immediately tore in to the pile (after signing all the delivery documents, of course, trying to remember to write “subject to inspection” on each copy). We didn’t have any scissors (they were in one of the boxes), so we used a handy knife from the Welcome Kit. Actually, we used a few, since some are so dull they can’t even cut through package tape. 🙂

The boxes

When the boxes were packed, we piled up what we thought would weigh 450 pounds, once packed. But, I guess they use less packing material than we’d estimated, because we only had about 200 pounds in the pile, even including our “back up” pile, but most of the rest of the house was already pretty thoroughly packed. So I dashed around adding things in, crazy things, some of them.

Now that I am here, I regret not including the paper copy of my dissertation (it would be a lot easier to finish the revisions with a paper copy in front of me). But, that’s my only regret, and I did include the printer, but no paper or ink….

I wish I had included…
1. more hangars
2. something colorful for the bedroom and living room (I included a beige comforter, it matches, but EVERYTHING is beige, blegh). A cheerful pillowcase like this blogger‘s would do a lot for making this place feel homier.
3. A drying rack for my clothes (the humidity prevents the dryer from fully drying everything)
4. Trashcan liners, apparently the grocery store bags I used to use are illegal here, and bin liners are terribly expensive. It’s probably futile anyway, since the trash is immediately opened for “recycling” once it makes it downstairs, but the bin is gross without it.
5. Something VERY fancy to wear, Mr. A packed his tux. The fanciest thing I have is a cotton skirt. And, yes, we’re going to a ball in November. Figures.
6. And, last I wish I’d packed something inside the three food storage containers I sent. They arrived completely cracked, and therefore useless at keeping the bugs out of the rice. 😦 So disappointing. I kept the lids, hoping the ones in my HHE are ok). The movers did not do a good job of packing the UAB, it seemed good at the time, but most things were merely wrapped in one layer of paper and loosely laid in the box. When they arrived here, they were 30-50% full of air, rather than our stuff or paper. Everything that might crack or break, did. Thankfully we didn’t pack too much breakable stuff, and the nice stuff was in its original packages or packed especially by us.

What we’re happy we included:
1. Some extra (and very lightweight) dishes, now we can have people over, or eat more than once a day without doing dishes!
2. Hostess gifts (some little thank you items we’ll be needing as early as this week)
3. A sharp knife.
4. the Wii and a variety of party and solo games
5. Laundry “sheets” (those things from Purex that are all-in-one, we brought some in our baggage too, I’d probably never use them at home, but they were very portable.)
6. A simple picture cookbook for our housekeeper to get ideas from, tonight we’re having orange-teriyaki chicken with spinach and rice, thanks to the “3 and 4 Ingredient Cookbook.”

What I probably didn’t need:
Every stitch of clothing I own (other than my snow clothes), as my housekeeper does laundry _every_ day, whether it needs it or not.

What was exciting though, was the boxes themselves. If only I were 5 years old, or had a 5 year old nearby. These boxes are 5 layers thick, and very sturdy. They’d have been ideal play houses, pretend kitchens, sand sleds, phantom tollbooths, or something…. instead they are being turned into paper.

p.s. due to popular demand, I’ll be posting about our housekeeper and local clothing customs in coming weeks, if you have questions about our life in Dhaka, let me know by leaving a comment and I’ll blog about it.