Back to life, back to reality

It’s time to get back on track and join the world again. After a long holiday season with many troubles coupled with even more joyful moments we are finally back on track and on our way to a normal life with routines and schedules.

The container that had been M.I.A since the end of June finally reached us on December 20^th. After receiving the news I immediately informed the management office who told me the length and weight requirements of trucks coming into the compound, information I shared, of course, with the people responsible for delivering all our worldly goods. At 10am, the scheduled delivery time, I get the phone call I had suspected and expected to get: “The truck is too long; we need to move the things into a smaller truck”. Go figure.

A surprisingly short while later, the supervisor shows up with a Filofax in his hands; “Look” I tell Stacey who is there to help, “I had one of those in the 1990s, haha, remember – before iphones?“ It turns out it was mine and that it had …fallen…out of a box. Hmmm…and this was only the beginning. Other random items followed that had excaped broken boxes, at one time I went outside and found one of our couches on the driveway (the very dirty driveway I might add) one the ground, fabric side down.  Broken box after broken box were carried into our home. Our sofas looked like they had been wrapped in glad wrap – only, glasses and cups were broken, things were smushed and destroyed and many number tags (to identify everything on the packing list) were missing. It was a disaster and had I not had photo proof no-one would believe me. The supervisor was embarrassed and started taking photos as well and handed me the claim form for broken items without me asking for it.

Thank goodness for insurance, or so we thought…surely this would all be sorted out quickly. We had not counted in Christmas, New Years AND Chinese New Year which in 2012 fell only two short weeks after the western new year. Do I have to say we are still waiting?