This is How You Pack

How hard can it be to move when the State Department sends movers to pack all your stuff, anyway?

Hard.

I've talked about the logistics before. If you have read my blog, you will have become familiar with HHE, UAB, POV...it is all there. So, dear reader, what is it that you could possibly be missing? The movers come, they take your stuff, it is all good, right?

But before the movers come, you need to sort, and you need to pack your checked luggage.

What? But I'm sending my HHE and UAB out two weeks before I move. Why would I pack my checked luggage first?

Because, dear reader, you don't know how much stuff is going to fit in your checked luggage until you actually pack it. If you send away your HHE and UAB shipments, and not everything fits into your two checked suitcases, one carry-on suitcase, and personal item (in my family, it is a backpack), you will have to decide whether to sell what is left, mail it home, or pay for extra luggage on the airplane.

In addition, if your suitcases have all of the stuff you don't want packed by the movers in them, and you lock them all away in one room, the movers won't take the stuff you want to keep. Make sure your purse, wallet, laptop, etc., all make it into that locked room. Keep your phone in your pocket if you need it, and don't even THINK of leaving it on your kitchen counter. Take all of the keys from the entire house and put them in that room. Except for the one to that room, of course, which you are going to attach to yourself.

Also, take out the trash. You don't want the movers to pack that. And they will, if you don't throw it out.

In addition to the things you want to take on the plane, you will also need to hide away your welcome kit. That's the linens and kitchen stuff, broom, mop and and maybe even a vacuum, that your post or extended stay place lent you (some posts make you keep it the whole time you are there - if not, you can ask for it to be delivered after you pack out, I would think). You will also want some basic cleaning supplies, so don't send them all away. Keep some dish soap, dishwasher detergent, sponges, laundry detergent, toilet cleaner and all-purpose cleaner locked away, or you will have to go shopping for some to replace it.

Any other items, like furniture and lamps, need to be marked or separated by whether they are yours or post's. I like little round stickers. Red is Don't Touch, green is UAB, yellow is HHE, and blue is Storage. I start marking things a couple of weeks in advance, and then I move all of my UAB into one room (not a bedroom, you'll see why later) before the pack-out, and all of my stuff going to storage in another room.

Sometimes, movers tell you they are going to pack out your HHE first, then your UAB. Oh, no, they will not. You are the boss, and your UAB gets packed first, so tell them so. You want to use all of your UAB weight allocation before you start packing HHE, and this is how you will do it:

As I said, you put your UAB all in one room. The living room would be great for this. You put the things you want most in the area of the room that is where boxes will most easily be loaded. You then place your stuff in order by how much you want it in UAB behind the box-loading area. You explain it to the movers, and then you check on them to make sure they are doing it your way every five minutes while they pack. Then, know what you might want if you happen to have extra space available for UAB.

HHE going back to storage (all of those wrong voltage appliances that you don't want to run on transformers, and clothing inappropriate for the ongoing post) get to go into another room with space for packing. If you have any furniture going back to storage, maybe it would be good to put this stuff near or on that furniture. For us, we have a loft with a dining set that will go back to storage, as we won't have room for it next post. Stuff going to storage will go on that table. I'll put all of my appliances in their boxes, which I saved, so they don't get broken. Then, I'll ask my mover to pack the appliances together with "110v appliances" listed on the outside of the box. I'll ask him to keep the clothing together in another box. I'll ask him not to combine them, no matter how much he wants to pad one appliance that doesn't have a box with my clothing. I may not want that 110v crock pot in the same country as my snowpants, so I certainly don't want them packed together, or in order to get one, I'll have to take the other (I may have learned this because of the snowboard sitting here in my storage room in Brasilia, that came boxed with the Rollerblades from MN).

HHE going to post, on the other hand, is best left in the corresponding room that it should go in when you arrive at post. That way, it can be boxed up together and labeled appropriately. When we left MN, we had emptied our house out and put things in storage rooms, so when we received all of our stuff, it was all labled "storage" and was all mixed together. As the boxes were unloaded, those of us at home had to run everything to its proper place. It was tiring. It is better to have the boxes go to their proper rooms, then be unpacked. You don't want to use a bedroom for separating your UAB or storage things, because the stuff in the bedrooms should be packed out from the bedrooms, and could get mixed up with the UAB or shipped off to the warehouse.

Don't forget to clean each room thoroughly before packing out, and making sure everything in each room belongs in that room.

One tip for when you receive your shipment at post - the movers are paid to unpack your boxes and take the empty boxes and paper away with them. Sometimes, they will try to leave after unloading it all, but all you have to do is smile and tell them it is time to start unpacking, and they will know they have been caught and will be very helpful. Figure out how to say that in the language of the country you are living in before they arrive, or have someone write it down for you.

I may not have a lot of experience with moves yet, but I have done it twice in the past two and a half years. I know what has worked and not worked from that, and from reading Trailing Houses, the private diplomat Facebook page. This is the wisdom that comes from the whole community, for those people who like to organize and be in control. I hope it helps!

Baking in Brasilia

A recent Facebook post asking about baking supplies reminded me of a few things I struggled with when I first arrived in Brasilia, so I thought a few tips with pictures might help some new people. I posted this information on Diplomatic Baggage in Brasilia, but figured this would be a good place for it, too.

#1. Flour - There are many brands, and I normally just buy the cheapest "farinha de trigo" on the shelf. I haven't noticed a difference between brands. I was looking for 5lb bags when I got here, and was surprised at how tiny they are in their little 1Kg bags (I didn't find them until I asked a friend, after trying at several stores)! Look in or near the dried bean aisle, near the farofa. You'll find it on the lower half of the shelves. (Storage tip: Put in your deep freezer. You have room in there anyway, and it will keep the bugs out.)

#2. Baking Powder - There are some people here that will tell you that this isn't available on the local market, but that is far from the truth! You can find it in any grocery store, and it is cheap. It is called "fermento em pó quimico." It is normally in the same aisle as the flour, and comes in either a blue or red container, depending on the brand. It is really cheap, and works just like back home. For some reason, the commissary has stocked up on this, but it is way cheaper at the store.

#3. Yeast - There are some people who get yeast confused with baking powder, as they are both called fermento, but this one is "fermento biológico." This one is instant dry yeast, also found in the flour aisle.

#4. Sugar - Your basic granulated sugar is just "açúcar cristal." It is a little less white here than in the U.S., but it works the same. I wanted so badly to find it in the same aisle as the flour, but alas, it was in a completely different area. If you can't find it, look in an aisle near the coffee aisle. As for brown sugar, if you are desperate, you can get it on the local market, but it is crumbly and not quite the same. Buy it from the commissary or bring some with you. (Again, store it in your freezer to keep the ants from finding it.)

#5. Where is the shortening? Not in a canister on a shelf, that's for sure! You'll find it in plastic bags in the refrigerated section. It is called "gordura vegetal." It isn't quite the same consistency as back home (it gets really soft at room temp.), so you may have to experiment a little if you plan to bake with it. I don't use it in my baking much - just for greasing pans and making pie crusts. For those purposes, it works just fine.

#6. Why do my cookies taste funny and set up differently? After experimenting for a while and getting advice from others, we realized that there is a lot of salt in the butter here. Also, the stuff in the big tubs is not good for baking unless you are in a pinch. It is too oily, as well as salty. So, buy "manteiga extra sem sal" in block form, and you will find that your cookies turn out much better. If you can't find it "sem sal," just skip adding salt in the recipe. The stores do run out of this frequently, so I stick a supply of it in my freezer whenever it is a good price. Remember that the block of butter is not equivalent to one or even two sticks. The conversion is 200g=1.76 sticks=.88 cups. In other words, if you need a cup of butter, you'll need just over one of their little blocks. I use a kitchen scale, myself.

#7. I don't have a picture of baking soda, but I'll tell you about it anyway. Look in the spices aisle, not the flour aisle. At Carrefour in Lago Sul, it is by the vinegar and oil and fruit juices. At other stores, it is in other places. There are also fresh spices in the produce sections of some stores, but you won't find baking soda there. What you are looking for is a tiny, clear plastic baggie, hanging around with all the spices in baggies. I happen to use baking soda for cleaning, as well as for baking, so I just buy it in big bags from Amazon. It is way cheaper that way. But if you just need a little to tie you over, look for "bicarbonato de sódio."

Living Amongst Monkeys

I love the wildlife here in Brasilia. I am always excited to find monkeys, however. They are a little more like squirrels than I had expected. However, they can be quite tame, as evidenced by the monkeys in my friend's back yard. My kids are hoping that they will be able to make friends with the monkeys that come to our yard this summer.

Second Tour Bidding

Second tour bidding is a bit more complicated than first tour bidding. Instead of approximately the same number of jobs on the bid list as the number of members of the officer's A-100 class, there are several hundred jobs on your bid list, and it is your responsibility to read all of the rules your CDO (Career Development Officer) emails to you and try to find 30 bids that match these qualifications to fill out your list. Below is a summary of the rules that most affected DH.

Time in Training: Because of the World Cup being held in Brazil right about the time we were supposed to arrive, we were delayed getting to post until after it was over. What we didn't realize until the bidding instructions came out was that this made it nearly impossible for DH to bid on jobs with language training this time around. There is a maximum amount of "Time in Training" for a Junior Officer before it starts to mess with being tenured within the allowed time (FSO's have an "up or out" policy), so DH was only allowed two bids on his list that went over Time in Training. The likelihood that a CDO would give him one of these bids was extremely low. Also, there were very few bids on the list that DH would consider awesome enough to jeopardize his ability to tenure. In short, DH had to bid either English-speaking or Portuguese-speaking jobs, other than two jobs.

Get out of the Country: Say goodbye to most of the Portuguese-speaking jobs, because you can't serve in the same country you are currently in.

Consular/In Cone Bids: DH did his in-cone assignment this time around, so he had to focus on making sure all of his bids had at least one year of Consular duties in them. There were very few qualifying bids on his list that were not Consular, so this was not difficult. There were a few rotations, but most of them had language training or had bad timing.

Differential: Because we were at a low differential post this time (read: not terribly different lifestyle than in the U.S., not very dangerous, either), DH would be able to look over the whole list, but wouldn't get to bid on it until everyone with high differentials had received their assignments from it. So, we got to research everything, make a preliminary list, then watch posts get removed from the list and try to come up with different bids. Or so we thought. (More on that later.) Also, because of our low differential this time, 20 of our 30 bids had to have a 15% or higher differential. Not terribly difficult to do with this bid list.

ETA: There is an extraordinary amount of math to be done when working on bid lists. This is because the bids all come with an arrival date, and you have to figure out how much training time you have to do between your TED (date you can leave post) and the arrival date to come up with an acceptable ETA. This ETA can wiggle by one month of the date on the bid list, creating Perfect (same month) and Imperfect (one month difference) bids. The math part comes up because of Home Leave, Position Training, Language Training, and Consultations. Home leave has to be no fewer than 20 business days, and no more than 45 business days. Position Training isn't necessarily going to start at the optimal time (except Consular, luckily, which starts a new class every Monday). Language Training is the sticky one. They start at only a few different times per year. Then, add in up to five Consultation days to fill in any gaps (and actually do some consultations), and you have your schedule. Now do this for each different language/position combination on the list. That's what I had to do over and over again until I discovered there was no way DH was going to fit in language training and stay under his Time in Training allowance. Also, there was only one non-Brazil Portuguese-speaking job on the list, and it was way later on the ETA. So, we were down to English only.

Perfect/Imperfect: You must bid at least 20 Perfect bids. Yeah, right. After removing from the list anything that was absolutely impossible for DH to do because of the ETA, Time in Training, and Consular requirements, we came up with exactly 32 possible bids. However, there were fewer than 20 that were Perfect bids. By the time DH was allowed to submit his bid list, there were only 24 possible bids left on the list, and only 13 were Perfect. Among the Imperfects were two that went beyond Time in Training, just to add some things to the list. The CDO had a timely vacation during the final week of bidding, so the question of "what to do now" was never answered. DH submitted the bid list as it was, and I guess that was the right thing to do, because we got our #1 bid.

Rank Order List: Unlike the A-100 "high, mid, low" ranking system, this list gets rank ordered from 1-30. They also had the officer list reasons for why they put the job on the list, and explain the math that gets them there by their ETA. About half of DH's list said that the schools looked good, about 8-10 said he had some interest in that country, and the rest that didn't say either of those basically said that there was low interest in the jobs or the schools weren't accredited, so we'd rather not, thank you! Most of the time, jobs where you really don't want to go don't go on the list, so we were a little worried about their presence on the list at all, but not too much. We had heard that normally, people get a job in their top 5. 

The Results: We heard back in about two weeks from submitting the list. In case you didn't get the importance of the flag at the top of the screen, we are going to India (specifically, Chennai), in September of 2016, where DH will be a Consular Officer. Luckily, India was a place DH wanted to go, anyway, and would have been on the list, even if the list hadn't been decimated by his Time in Training restrictions. I have always been fascinated by books I read about India, so it wasn't hard for me to get on board. DH probably would have chosen a language-designated position in India over English-speaking, though. Why Chennai over New Delhi or Mumbai? Mainly because of its better air quality, the timing of arrival, and something about it just felt right. I'm happy that we will be getting to our next post without transferring schools twice, even though the kids will be getting there about 6 weeks after school starts. I'm sure I'll be dedicating a post to that issue sometime in the future! 

Flowers

Here is a picture of our DD and some flowers at Jardim Botanico that I took on Labor Day (which is in May for most of the world, not September - extra holiday for us, yay!).

There is something about more temperate climates than MN that I just love. It is more colorful. In MN, there are about 4 months where there are flowers in bloom. Fall is absolutely lovely, with the change from greens to oranges and reds on the leaves. And yes, I do also see beauty in snow (that first hour before the auto exhaust hits it all and it turns black). An ice storm is a lovely thing to behold if the next morning is sunny. But the window for each event is so short, and they can be few and far between, leaving you in a grey, dismal world for long stretches of time. But in VA, the cold season was shorter, and there were bushes brilliant with colorful flowers I had never seen before that would never have survived a MN winter. Here in Brasilia, there are always new varieties of bushes and trees flowering, year around. This picture is just one small example. And look how it sports not only one, but two different colors on the same bush. Next time, I need to discuss birds. Or bugs. The colors here are really amazing, guys.

Traveling Teams - Softball

One of the interesting parts about going to high school overseas is that the sports teams and clubs travel for tournaments and conferences. DS2 recently flew with his softball team to the Big Four tournament in São Paulo. Our #10 was the starting pitcher, pitching all but one inning, and outfielding that inning. While the outcomes of the games weren't great, he did a great job.

We are proud of his efforts, especially as he has never been on a sports team, other than cross country running, until this school year. 

DS2 received two sportsmanship nominations from the opposing teams this tournament. 

What's Up?

I wrote an email to a friend from VA this morning, and I realized it is all stuff that could easily make up a blog post.

DS1 is enjoying missionary work. He is getting better at Spanish and is a senior companion now with his first transfer. It seems he is enjoying working with this companion more than the last, as they have similar feelings about how to work, so they are finding more people to teach.

He had starting dating a girl just a month or so before his mission, and doesn't understand now why, even though he prayed about it, he has still gotten hurt, as she quit writing to him a few months ago. We have been helping him understand that God doesn't keep us from pain, even when we make choices that He is okay with us making. The gospel is there to help us grow and give us peace, and sometimes that growth comes with a little pain.

The other kids are learning Portuguese. They had a month-long holiday break and return to school on Monday, but they have had language, math and music lessons to do each day. Changing math programs to Common Core was a little rough on them, as everything is out of order. During first semester, some units they already knew, and others needed information they hadn't learned yet. So, we use the break to fill in the gaps. Hopefully, when they return, they will only be ahead.

DH loves his job! He helped facilitate Joe Biden's trip here for Dilma's inauguration over the holidays, which was a lot of extra work, but his day-to-day job has been fulfilling for him.

DH and I were both part of a small vocal ensemble that gave a couple of Christmas concerts. It was made up of people from the UK and US embassies. We had a lot of fun!

Along with Portuguese studies for me, as well, I have been trying to clean up my diet. I seem to catch every bug that comes my way lately, so I cut out sugary snacks for the last two weeks and am feeling better. One more week to go without any for this challenge I'm doing with a friend from MN, and then I can ease back into the occasional piece of chocolate or dessert after dinner; not the daily overdose of processed sugar I was hooked on. I'm also trying to put more fresh veggies in our diet. I was really used to preparing frozen veggies in MN and VA, but they are terribly expensive here, while fresh veggies are cheap. It takes a lot more planning and preparation to buy the right amount and the right ones for meals without letting any go bad, so I have to get better at meal planning, as well. Lots to learn when you move to a new country, for the whole family!