Home Sweet Home

I am officially settled in Venezuela.

After arriving here nearly three months ago, my car and personal effects have all arrived, after making a long journey from Phoenix to DC to Miami by road, sitting at a storage facility Miami for a few months, then traveling by oceanliner to Caracas where it sat for several weeks to clear customs. Most of my stuff I haven't seen for well over a year and I'm happy to finally be surrounded by familiar items once again in a place that I can call home.

Last week a team of four guys showed up at my apartment with a small flatbed truck loaded with several wooden crates holding by household effects (HHE). Before they started unloading, it was quickly realized that the service elevator was out of order and that everything would have to be carried up four flights of stairs to my apartment. After a short delay, another group of about 5 guys showed up and started hauling everything up. A security guard from the embassy came to observe the unloading while I stayed in the apartment to check every box that was brought in. During the original packout, a number was placed on every box that corresponds with the packing list, to make it easier to determine if anything went missing during transit. It took three hours to haul everything up to my place, and admittedly I learned quite a few local swear words in the process. I also learned that the movers preferred by Diet Pepsi more than the gatorade or ice water that I put out for them, consuming over 6 bottles over the course of the day.

Ultimately, once every box was brought in and I verified that no boxes were missing, the workers opened everything up and started placing all of the stuff around the apartment with as much direction as I could provide to ten guys at the same time. Within a few hours, all of the boxes were unloaded, broken down and the workers were out the door. I tipped them about 10 bucks a piece, which is about the same as the amount they were getting paid for the day, then set off to start organizing my new home.

One week later I'm almost done.

A few items of note however. When I packed out of Phoenix about 14 months ago, the movers packed up all of my dry food without me realizing until after they had left. After tossing all of the opened items, i.e. a half box of Cheerios, I discovered that due to the miracle of preservatives, most of the expired foodstuffs were still good. Though, after explaining the situation the movers, they decided to play a practical joke on one of their own. They gave him a year old granola bars without telling him about the expiration date, then laughed as year wolfed it down. After it met his approval though, with my permission they gobbled down nearly all of the expired snacks that were left. Apparently, even expired American foods are better than the local ones.

A few of my items arrived broken, but overall I was suprised at the condition everything else arrived in. A souvenir mask from Peru and some glass protecting my artwork was cracked, but nothing else. I did receive a few additional items though that I intended to leave in storage. Apparently the movers in Arizona combined some of the items they were packing which they failed to include in the packing list. As such, I now have chair cushions for a chair that wasn't shipped, two glass tabletops for coffee tables that weren't shipped, and the legs to a kitchen table that remains in DC. Now I just have to store them in a closet for the next two years or figure out something else to do with them.

Furthermore, I did have some drama with my car. My Mazda and my HHE arrived at the same time, but the car cleared customs about a week and a half before my personal effects. With absolute premonition, I told me coworkers that with my luck, I would end up getting a flat tire before my stuff arrived. This was a concern because before I shipped my car, I removed everything from the car that could be stolen, because a nice car sitting in a foreign port waiting to clear customs is a magnet for theft. As such, I took out the floor mats, cigarette lighter, antenna, and most specifically the lug-nut key that is needed to remove the tires. In Venezuela, good tires can go for $1000USD a piece, so my tires could be an instant fortune for any lowlife wanting to steal them. Accordingly, I put all of those items in my HHE, assuming they would arrive before my car. Not so. Then, within two days of the car arriving, I walked out of the embassy after work on a Friday evening after everyone else had gone home and found a flat tire, just as predicted. Furthermore, as a victim of my own foresight, there was no way that I could get the flat tire off the car to fix it. I jacked the car up and left it in the embassy parking lot over the weekend. Then, that Monday I had a mechanic look at it who devised a quick fix. I found the screw in the tire, twisted it out, covered it in tar, then screwed it back in. Presto! Tire was fixed, and amazingly held air for the next 10 days while I awaited the lug-nut key to arrive through customs.

Postscript

As soon as the key arrived, I had a mechanic change and repair the tire in the embassy parking lot. He presented me the screw as my first souvenir and I put it in my pocket to show my colleagues inside, but when I tried to find the screw later, it was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, I think the screw is likely out in the parking lot waiting to victimize me again.

Since then, I've been parking on the opposite side of the lot.

M