The Joys of Life Overseas

Being associated with an embassy, we have access to both American groceries and moderate access to the US postal system.  Sadly, these things don't always work exactly the way they are supposed to.  First, I will share a recent message we received from the commissary.  Second, a message from our postal clerk.
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Dear Commissary members,

This is just to let you know that next week we are expecting to receive a 40’ FCL containing dry mixed consumables carrying products like select cereals, dish washing liquids, spaghetti/pasta, dry and wet cat and dog food products etc. This particular shipment is from California and was originally scheduled to arrive at Chittagong on April 23, 2013.

On this note, please also be advised that the reason for our late receiving of the above shipment is that we initially placed dry orders (containing the above products that are currently experiencing run outs) with our lead vendor Ramstein CMY and after nearly 4 weeks of our closing the bid, we were informed by Ramstein that they are temporarily not processing any orders as they are upgrading their software. We then immediately went to our secondary and commercial vendors in the US and organized the above mentioned 40’ FCL shipment in addition to ordering of air shipments for select products to meet up products gaps. You will be happy to note that we have 2 full 40’ FCL shipments lined up to arrive Chittagong after May 24^th carrying dry mixed and freeze cargo.

As always, we thank you for your kind understanding, patience and support to the Commissary!

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Just a quick note on this message above - Ramstein CMY is the military commissary at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.  It's always nice to see government efficiency at all levels...  Meanwhile, the commissary has been out of Multi-grain cheerios (yes, I realize we're usually pretty spoiled) and sandwich bread for weeks.  Not that we need things like bread when I make sandwiches for a school-bound kid every day for lunch.  I guess I should clarify.  The commissary isn't OUT of sandwich bread, but the bread they have is all over $5 per loaf.  We routinely get a variety of brands when items come in, and the bread I buy is usually about $3.50 per loaf.  So... I'm just not going to pay over $5.  I just won't. 

And now for our update from the post office:

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Hello All,

Mailroom has received some mailbags with obvious smoke damage. You may notice smoke odor in your packages. We are inquiring for further information from Singapore about the incident.

We are also asking DPO how, if possible, you could claim for damage from USPS.

In one package, from WalMart, a jar of pickles was broken. The breakage is attributable to insufficient packaging by the shipper. The goods are protected by mere one layer of twisted manila paper around the inside of the box. All other boxes and packages in the same bag may have the smell of pickles.

We are sorry but these incidents are beyond our control.

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As a side note, I can not recall any time that the commissary has ever been sold out of pickles.  Additionally, we are not authorized to ship liquid items (or items that contain liquids) in excess of 16 oz, so I'm not really sure what anyone was doing ordering them in the first place.  

 

And that's the news from Dhaka.