Work

The house is barren, it echos, and the smell of cardboard is in the air. The movers arrived today, boxes, paper and bubble-wrap in hand. We had heard from others that these guys don’t take any chances when it comes to packing – every thing is getting several layers of paper, then bubble wrap, then tape. While I don’t think we will have much damage, I’m not looking forward to unwrapping every glass, plate and knick-nack. Liz likes these moves because it gives us a chance to clean out – we have thrown or given away hundreds of pounds of stuff, from old clothes to charcoal. It still feels like we have a lot left. A lot of things went to locals – we had 6 or 8 bags of clothes that went to our neighbor’s housekeeper. Liz told me tonight that she took it all home and immediately called her friends, who apparently rushed over to her house to pick through it all. We are taking refuge in our bedroom – we even had dinner there tonight. If Liz hadn’t saved a little cooking gear in for our air shipment (we get one “E” carton) we wouldn’t have even had any pans or knives to make dinner with. Seeing how it snowed about 5 inches today, we weren’t that interested in going out tonight. Besides, neither of us were in the mood. Our friends here have been sending us off in grand style. We’ve already had two departure dinners, and at least 3 more are planned for this week. We’ve had some pretty touching moments already – I’m glad we have saved out some tissues to wipe the tears. We will be leaving some wonderful, wonderful friends here. It’s amazing how close we have become with the people here after only a few years. I guess one of the things that you learn in this sort of environment is that it’s not a good idea to take time to develop relationships. I think we have also found a lot of like-minded people here, people who are willing to take a chance and see what the world has to offer. We feel privileged to know these wonderful folks.