I'm beyond happy to share with everyone that our end of month paycheck for June includes $15,000 of back pay for housing and separation allowances. They've also taken back the COLA we have erroneously been paid since January, so we should be even once this check gets deposited.
I'm also happy to share that while we still don't have orders - or an RFO - we think we'll have an RFO soon that will allow us to all be together again before another month passes. I'm having flashbacks to the last time we PCS'd from Dhaka when we didn't have orders in hand until 5 days before we got on the airplane. We still managed to get movers scheduled, get plane tickets, and get everything packed up. It's like procrastinating, but not on purpose. When you wait 'til the last minute, it only takes a minute to get everything done. June is shaping up to be a pretty good month.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Friday, May 12, 2017
Evacuation
It's been a long time since I've posted - mostly I've been busy. Then again, I've heard that "being busy" is never a good excuse; the reality is that you make time for things that are important. So... I guess that means that recording the trials and tribulations of the last year have not been as important as "other stuff".
Here goes:
One of the benefits afforded to us based on our overseas duty is that we get a free ticket home once every two years (or two times over the course of three years). It just so happened that we were in the US taking advantage of these tickets home when a truly unthinkable event took place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2016_Dhaka_attack This was a location close to our homes, within the "safe zone" and a restaurant often frequented by embassy members. Witnessing the news reports from afar was bad enough, but what quickly followed was the realization that as family members, we were not going to be allowed to return.
We were "stuck out", left with only what we had packed in our suitcases for summer vacation in a location that actually had four seasons. We got less than one week notice that J would be doing his next (and final) year in Dhaka unaccompanied. There was always a chance that things would improve to a point where we could return, but based on our own observations over the past few years there, we found that to be unlikely.
Being in the military and being assigned to an embassy is not that unusual, but when compared to the number of people doing "other things" in the Army, there's not a lot of knowledge out there on what happens in a situation like ours. Tracking down the people who have the answers and then convincing everyone else that they're actually supposed to help you has been... difficult.
Our first six months stateside, we're supposed to receive a living stipend to help offset expenses. We chose to live with family because we had no idea what our future assignment might be, and - let's face it - unaccompanied tours with kids are tough. Sometimes just having an extra set of hands is a godsend. This meant we were not eligible to receive a housing stipend, but were still entitled to a meal allowance. Our evacuation lasted from July until January (at which point the post became officially unaccompanied and all evacuation allowances stopped). Our point of contact in Hawaii who was handling the financial piece of this often went weeks or months without responding, so our reimbursement for expenses was significantly delayed. It didn't help of course that our evacuation spanned a change in fiscal year (which required an entirely new set of orders with new fiscal year data in order to allow for payment). Sometime around mid-March I finally got our settlement for accrued payments due from October-January.
Once those payments were taken care of, we started our process of trying to work out the other financial kinks:
The Basic Allowance for Housing was supposed to kick in at the end of the evacuation (January).
The Separation Allowance was supposed to start after the first 30 days (February).
J had to have other allowances he had been receiving in Dhaka stopped based on the fact that we are no longer with him.
As of mid-May, we are still waiting for any of these actions to process. Things slip through the cracks, email boxes get filled to overflowing every single day, and stuff happens. I get this.
The other piece of the evacuation involves our "stuff". Without us there, J has little need for all of our clothes, toys, and assorted items. He was able to get approval for a small shipment shortly after the evacuation was announced that allowed him to send home basic essentials, but we were restricted on weight. After it was determined the evacuation would become permanent, he had to request a new set of orders to allow him to ship home all of our other household goods. These orders took from January until the end of March to generate. Again, it becomes an issue of tracking down the right person in the right office to figure these things out since they're just not done very often.
Initially, Hawaii thought we would need to have an Early Return of Dependents approved, since that's generally the process to have family members (and their things) returned stateside. However, we were ALREADY stateside, so the final determination was that an ERD was not required. A new set of orders was cut granting approval for J to ship our HHG home in accordance with evacuation regulations.
Having purchased a home in the meantime (with a power of attorney), I began preparations to get our furniture out of storage and delivered to us in the DC area. Generally, this is handled by the nearest military installation, so I called Ft. Belvoir. After three days of no response, they called to tell me they couldn't help me - I needed to call the military installation that had put my items in storage. Now, I know this to be false. I know that in fact Ft. Belvoir is supposed to help me. But as much as it sometimes pains me to use the path of least resistance instead of pushing for things to be done the "right" way, I offered to try things their way. I called Eglin AFB and explained my situation. Naturally, the first thing they told me was that my nearest military installation is supposed to handle this for me. When I explained that I had already contacted my nearest installation, he offered to call instead on my behalf. He called me back 5 minutes later and said Belvoir was not going to help. He asked me to send all of the orders I had to him and he would take care of everything.
After receiving the papers, I got the dreaded (yet somehow expected) phone call that there was no funding in any of the orders I sent him to authorize payment to bring my items out of storage - nor was I as a the dependent authorized to do any of this without a power of attorney. Now, luckily I have one, but I was highly entertained when he commented that "normally" in these situations, an Early Return of Dependents order is cut to authorize all of these things. Right... Back to the ERD that Hawaii decided we did not need. His final words to me on he phone today were, "We'll get through this, ma'am." Sometimes it's these little things - hearing that someone else has an interest in making things right - that helps me make sense of the madness.
And so now I wait - again. For someone to start my housing allowance, for someone to authorize me to get my furniture out of storage, for someone to decide yet again that they "know" what really needs to be done.
I remain thankful that I have family here to help with the day to day things. I remain thankful that we have a home we will be moving in to (once we get our furniture) and a car to easily accommodate all of our day-to-day commitments. Eventually J will get orders to come home and we will be together again. On the practical side, I remain thankful that we have been fortunate enough to have the financial assets to "flex" and cover all of our expenses while we wait for the reimbursement to catch up with us.
Here goes:
One of the benefits afforded to us based on our overseas duty is that we get a free ticket home once every two years (or two times over the course of three years). It just so happened that we were in the US taking advantage of these tickets home when a truly unthinkable event took place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2016_Dhaka_attack This was a location close to our homes, within the "safe zone" and a restaurant often frequented by embassy members. Witnessing the news reports from afar was bad enough, but what quickly followed was the realization that as family members, we were not going to be allowed to return.
We were "stuck out", left with only what we had packed in our suitcases for summer vacation in a location that actually had four seasons. We got less than one week notice that J would be doing his next (and final) year in Dhaka unaccompanied. There was always a chance that things would improve to a point where we could return, but based on our own observations over the past few years there, we found that to be unlikely.
Being in the military and being assigned to an embassy is not that unusual, but when compared to the number of people doing "other things" in the Army, there's not a lot of knowledge out there on what happens in a situation like ours. Tracking down the people who have the answers and then convincing everyone else that they're actually supposed to help you has been... difficult.
Our first six months stateside, we're supposed to receive a living stipend to help offset expenses. We chose to live with family because we had no idea what our future assignment might be, and - let's face it - unaccompanied tours with kids are tough. Sometimes just having an extra set of hands is a godsend. This meant we were not eligible to receive a housing stipend, but were still entitled to a meal allowance. Our evacuation lasted from July until January (at which point the post became officially unaccompanied and all evacuation allowances stopped). Our point of contact in Hawaii who was handling the financial piece of this often went weeks or months without responding, so our reimbursement for expenses was significantly delayed. It didn't help of course that our evacuation spanned a change in fiscal year (which required an entirely new set of orders with new fiscal year data in order to allow for payment). Sometime around mid-March I finally got our settlement for accrued payments due from October-January.
Once those payments were taken care of, we started our process of trying to work out the other financial kinks:
The Basic Allowance for Housing was supposed to kick in at the end of the evacuation (January).
The Separation Allowance was supposed to start after the first 30 days (February).
J had to have other allowances he had been receiving in Dhaka stopped based on the fact that we are no longer with him.
As of mid-May, we are still waiting for any of these actions to process. Things slip through the cracks, email boxes get filled to overflowing every single day, and stuff happens. I get this.
The other piece of the evacuation involves our "stuff". Without us there, J has little need for all of our clothes, toys, and assorted items. He was able to get approval for a small shipment shortly after the evacuation was announced that allowed him to send home basic essentials, but we were restricted on weight. After it was determined the evacuation would become permanent, he had to request a new set of orders to allow him to ship home all of our other household goods. These orders took from January until the end of March to generate. Again, it becomes an issue of tracking down the right person in the right office to figure these things out since they're just not done very often.
Initially, Hawaii thought we would need to have an Early Return of Dependents approved, since that's generally the process to have family members (and their things) returned stateside. However, we were ALREADY stateside, so the final determination was that an ERD was not required. A new set of orders was cut granting approval for J to ship our HHG home in accordance with evacuation regulations.
Having purchased a home in the meantime (with a power of attorney), I began preparations to get our furniture out of storage and delivered to us in the DC area. Generally, this is handled by the nearest military installation, so I called Ft. Belvoir. After three days of no response, they called to tell me they couldn't help me - I needed to call the military installation that had put my items in storage. Now, I know this to be false. I know that in fact Ft. Belvoir is supposed to help me. But as much as it sometimes pains me to use the path of least resistance instead of pushing for things to be done the "right" way, I offered to try things their way. I called Eglin AFB and explained my situation. Naturally, the first thing they told me was that my nearest military installation is supposed to handle this for me. When I explained that I had already contacted my nearest installation, he offered to call instead on my behalf. He called me back 5 minutes later and said Belvoir was not going to help. He asked me to send all of the orders I had to him and he would take care of everything.
After receiving the papers, I got the dreaded (yet somehow expected) phone call that there was no funding in any of the orders I sent him to authorize payment to bring my items out of storage - nor was I as a the dependent authorized to do any of this without a power of attorney. Now, luckily I have one, but I was highly entertained when he commented that "normally" in these situations, an Early Return of Dependents order is cut to authorize all of these things. Right... Back to the ERD that Hawaii decided we did not need. His final words to me on he phone today were, "We'll get through this, ma'am." Sometimes it's these little things - hearing that someone else has an interest in making things right - that helps me make sense of the madness.
And so now I wait - again. For someone to start my housing allowance, for someone to authorize me to get my furniture out of storage, for someone to decide yet again that they "know" what really needs to be done.
I remain thankful that I have family here to help with the day to day things. I remain thankful that we have a home we will be moving in to (once we get our furniture) and a car to easily accommodate all of our day-to-day commitments. Eventually J will get orders to come home and we will be together again. On the practical side, I remain thankful that we have been fortunate enough to have the financial assets to "flex" and cover all of our expenses while we wait for the reimbursement to catch up with us.
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
The new normal
As it turns out, it been six months since our lives were... altered. Six months!!? I can't believe it's been that long since I could walk outside and freely shop wherever I wanted. And then I realize that really I didn't walk outside that much anyway. It was a nice escape when T was little and fussy and just needed a change of scenery (who am I kidding, he still needs that...), but we've found new ways to do things.
This is perhaps the lesson to be learned. Flexibility in all things. This is one of those lessons that military life really drills into you. There are times when I wish for things to be different, but they aren't so... Right.
We are still happy with our decision (and the Army's graceful acceptance) to extend here. It's a great situation for family life and the kids remain happy with school, club, and home as their options for entertainment. Being here has enabled me to get ever closer to finishing my masters degree - just one semester left (and a term paper, group project, and 2 final exams for my current semester).
The big news recently is that we now have an air quality monitor installed at the embassy reminding us each hour on the hour just how poor the air is here. www.airnow.gov On that note, T is on the nebulizer for the third time in the last six months, but seems to be doing much better finally. We all seem to be suffering a bit more healthwise than we did last year, but I think some of that is just the ebb and flow of time. We've got an extra kid in school now, so one more person to be picking up every germ that everyone else brings back with them from all of the places they seem to go all the time. In K's class, it seems that someone is always absent (and always out of the country). We're not people, we're actually just petri dishes in some large experiment. I've been trying to get my hands on an indoor air quality monitor since our windows don't really do a great job of keeping the outdoor air outside, but the one I really want is only for sale in China. Still waiting and hoping someone might take me up on the offer of sending me one. In the meantime, we'll operate under the assumption that our indoor air is awesome!
We're enjoying Spring Break this week by binge-playing Star Wars on Wii, overdoing it on tennis lessons at the club, and doing our best not to get rained on while outside. We hope to have our summer vacation plans finalized sometime soon and are looking forward to a somewhat relaxing time back in the US.
This is perhaps the lesson to be learned. Flexibility in all things. This is one of those lessons that military life really drills into you. There are times when I wish for things to be different, but they aren't so... Right.
We are still happy with our decision (and the Army's graceful acceptance) to extend here. It's a great situation for family life and the kids remain happy with school, club, and home as their options for entertainment. Being here has enabled me to get ever closer to finishing my masters degree - just one semester left (and a term paper, group project, and 2 final exams for my current semester).
The big news recently is that we now have an air quality monitor installed at the embassy reminding us each hour on the hour just how poor the air is here. www.airnow.gov On that note, T is on the nebulizer for the third time in the last six months, but seems to be doing much better finally. We all seem to be suffering a bit more healthwise than we did last year, but I think some of that is just the ebb and flow of time. We've got an extra kid in school now, so one more person to be picking up every germ that everyone else brings back with them from all of the places they seem to go all the time. In K's class, it seems that someone is always absent (and always out of the country). We're not people, we're actually just petri dishes in some large experiment. I've been trying to get my hands on an indoor air quality monitor since our windows don't really do a great job of keeping the outdoor air outside, but the one I really want is only for sale in China. Still waiting and hoping someone might take me up on the offer of sending me one. In the meantime, we'll operate under the assumption that our indoor air is awesome!
We're enjoying Spring Break this week by binge-playing Star Wars on Wii, overdoing it on tennis lessons at the club, and doing our best not to get rained on while outside. We hope to have our summer vacation plans finalized sometime soon and are looking forward to a somewhat relaxing time back in the US.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
The Status Quo
Suffice it to say that things have changed a bit since we arrived here a year ago (almost exactly a year at this point). We made it through weeks/months of hartals for the anniversary of the election. We made it through the blockade of the city.
The current situation is definitely something new. It might or might not have made the international news. About 3 weeks ago, a "western looking" man was shot outside the grocery store in the diplomatic enclave. This is a bit surprising for several reasons. First, with all of the violence we have seen in the past 2 1/2 years that we've been here, westerners have not really been the target. Occasionally, people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they get caught up in events. This was not the case however. Second, the man was shot in the back. There is reason to assume that he was essentially picked at random based upon the way he looked and was merely found to be a convenient target when someone was looking for one.
It's certainly sad to see something like this happen in a country where we (personally) have been shown nothing but friendship. One of the things I will take away from my time here - however long that might be - are the friendly smiles you get from most people you meet. This event was clearly something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, that fact alone does not make it less likely to occur in the future. A few days after the first shooting, another man - a Japanese man - was shot while riding a rickshaw. The circumstances are similar enough that the two shootings are thought to be related.
In an effort to ensure everyone's safety, our movements within the country have been significantly curtailed. We have very specific places we are allowed to travel and are required to keep very specific hours. Sadly the grocery store is not one of those places; neither are restaurants or shops.
We continue to hope that the situation will improve, but naturally there's no timeline for something like that. So far, we're very happy staying in focusing on school, work, movies, baking, and the things that have always sustained us in the past. Home is still here - and we're happy to be together.
The current situation is definitely something new. It might or might not have made the international news. About 3 weeks ago, a "western looking" man was shot outside the grocery store in the diplomatic enclave. This is a bit surprising for several reasons. First, with all of the violence we have seen in the past 2 1/2 years that we've been here, westerners have not really been the target. Occasionally, people are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they get caught up in events. This was not the case however. Second, the man was shot in the back. There is reason to assume that he was essentially picked at random based upon the way he looked and was merely found to be a convenient target when someone was looking for one.
It's certainly sad to see something like this happen in a country where we (personally) have been shown nothing but friendship. One of the things I will take away from my time here - however long that might be - are the friendly smiles you get from most people you meet. This event was clearly something out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, that fact alone does not make it less likely to occur in the future. A few days after the first shooting, another man - a Japanese man - was shot while riding a rickshaw. The circumstances are similar enough that the two shootings are thought to be related.
In an effort to ensure everyone's safety, our movements within the country have been significantly curtailed. We have very specific places we are allowed to travel and are required to keep very specific hours. Sadly the grocery store is not one of those places; neither are restaurants or shops.
We continue to hope that the situation will improve, but naturally there's no timeline for something like that. So far, we're very happy staying in focusing on school, work, movies, baking, and the things that have always sustained us in the past. Home is still here - and we're happy to be together.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Online Ordering
There are probably a variety of ways to tackle (accept) life overseas. You can choose to fully embrace the local culture by only shopping for and eating things that are locally available. Alternatively, you can import (via Amazon or a variety of other sources) just about anything you could need or want from the US. We have found that we fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.
One of the things I have come to appreciate while living here are the locally available fruits and vegetables. You become much more attuned to the growing seasons. Strawberries are available for a matter of weeks each year. Zucchini is available a bit more often, but still has a definite growing season. Mangoes, starfruit, grapes, and lychees are some of my kids' favorites, but also have a very limited season. Who knew I'd become extremely proficient at cleaning and preparing starfruit? I'm still not that great with the mangoes... Lychees are my newest favorite (as they're in season right now). Admittedly though they make my fingers hurt. All that peeling... At least they taste incredibly good once you get them peeled.
Bananas are pretty much always in seasons, but the particular variety you get just depends on the day. Some days we end up with the mini-bananas and some days the standard sized ones. They're all good in my opinion. To my knowledge, all of the apples we get here are imported, but they're available year round. Carrots, cucumbers, onions, and potatoes are also common at all times of the year. Meal planning, to the extent that we try to incorporate the locally available produce, depends on keeping track of what's currently in the store.
School lunches are another ball of wax altogether. The school offers a prepared lunch each day (for a set fee), but we have opted not to take advantage of that. We gave B an option, and he said he prefers to bring his own lunch. There's a new bakery near our house that we have just started using for sandwich bread, but white bread is available at most grocery stores. Wheat bread is much less common, and is generally not available in sandwich sized portions.
When preparing to come here, one of the most common things I heard from other FAO families was that snack foods were generally difficult to come by, and expensive to boot. They didn't lie. That's one of the things we order online and have shipped here. We order pretzel barrels, Cheez-it's, and other snack items from Costco in bulk on fairly regular intervals so we have small finger foods to put in lunches. Sadly things like Veggie-straws (a favorite of the kids) are not carried on their websites. If you're thinking about keeping your Costco membership while overseas, keep two things in mind: 1) A lot of things from their warehouse are not online 2) They do not ship to DPO. All of our Costco items have to come through the pouch (which does limit what we can order).
Lack of local breakfast foods was also mentioned as an issue before we came overseas. Under normal circumstances, our embassy commissary maintains a good selection of cereals at not-exorbitant prices. Unfortunately, with the ordering issues we've had recently (which we hope to be resolved within the next month), we've been short on cereal. I used amazon for a while to try to supplement, but I have discovered that walmart.com has better prices on their cereal. The downside is that you can only order 4 boxes of each type of cereal per order (yes, I like to buy everything in large quantities) and while they claim to ship to DPO, I have had several instances where they put all of my items in boxes much too large to fit in the DPO mailbag and they got returned to Walmart. I got a refund, no questions asked, but I still didn't get my stuff... So, for breakfast foods, I recommend Walmart, and I also recommend just paying the shipping on whatever you want rather than trying to stock up enough to get free shipping ($50 and over per order).
For those who do a lot of baking, I've heard great things about King Arthur Flour. Several times a year, they offer free shipping (or you can purchase a yearly membership and get free shipping all the time). They don't just have flour by the way. They stock a wide variety of baking mixes, storage containers, and accoutrements.
So, share! What are you favorite online spots for food?
One of the things I have come to appreciate while living here are the locally available fruits and vegetables. You become much more attuned to the growing seasons. Strawberries are available for a matter of weeks each year. Zucchini is available a bit more often, but still has a definite growing season. Mangoes, starfruit, grapes, and lychees are some of my kids' favorites, but also have a very limited season. Who knew I'd become extremely proficient at cleaning and preparing starfruit? I'm still not that great with the mangoes... Lychees are my newest favorite (as they're in season right now). Admittedly though they make my fingers hurt. All that peeling... At least they taste incredibly good once you get them peeled.
Bananas are pretty much always in seasons, but the particular variety you get just depends on the day. Some days we end up with the mini-bananas and some days the standard sized ones. They're all good in my opinion. To my knowledge, all of the apples we get here are imported, but they're available year round. Carrots, cucumbers, onions, and potatoes are also common at all times of the year. Meal planning, to the extent that we try to incorporate the locally available produce, depends on keeping track of what's currently in the store.
School lunches are another ball of wax altogether. The school offers a prepared lunch each day (for a set fee), but we have opted not to take advantage of that. We gave B an option, and he said he prefers to bring his own lunch. There's a new bakery near our house that we have just started using for sandwich bread, but white bread is available at most grocery stores. Wheat bread is much less common, and is generally not available in sandwich sized portions.
When preparing to come here, one of the most common things I heard from other FAO families was that snack foods were generally difficult to come by, and expensive to boot. They didn't lie. That's one of the things we order online and have shipped here. We order pretzel barrels, Cheez-it's, and other snack items from Costco in bulk on fairly regular intervals so we have small finger foods to put in lunches. Sadly things like Veggie-straws (a favorite of the kids) are not carried on their websites. If you're thinking about keeping your Costco membership while overseas, keep two things in mind: 1) A lot of things from their warehouse are not online 2) They do not ship to DPO. All of our Costco items have to come through the pouch (which does limit what we can order).
Lack of local breakfast foods was also mentioned as an issue before we came overseas. Under normal circumstances, our embassy commissary maintains a good selection of cereals at not-exorbitant prices. Unfortunately, with the ordering issues we've had recently (which we hope to be resolved within the next month), we've been short on cereal. I used amazon for a while to try to supplement, but I have discovered that walmart.com has better prices on their cereal. The downside is that you can only order 4 boxes of each type of cereal per order (yes, I like to buy everything in large quantities) and while they claim to ship to DPO, I have had several instances where they put all of my items in boxes much too large to fit in the DPO mailbag and they got returned to Walmart. I got a refund, no questions asked, but I still didn't get my stuff... So, for breakfast foods, I recommend Walmart, and I also recommend just paying the shipping on whatever you want rather than trying to stock up enough to get free shipping ($50 and over per order).
For those who do a lot of baking, I've heard great things about King Arthur Flour. Several times a year, they offer free shipping (or you can purchase a yearly membership and get free shipping all the time). They don't just have flour by the way. They stock a wide variety of baking mixes, storage containers, and accoutrements.
So, share! What are you favorite online spots for food?
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Ahhhh Vacation!
Leave is supposed to be relaxing - and it will be once I finish requesting child meals, making seat assignments, requesting bassinets for the long haul flights, and inputting frequent flier info for five people for every leg of the flight on four different airlines all of whom have their own system to input the info. I just lost two days worth of nap times and two evenings of TV time and I don't even know that I have bassinets. That will require 2 phone calls back to the US and one phone call to someone here who will more than likely say yes when what they really mean is a) I don't understand what you want or b) I can't give you what you want, but I want you to be happy.
<Somebody needs a vacation>
<Somebody needs a vacation>
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Bednets
Please pardon my crankiness today - our house has been taken over by a virus for the last two weeks and the fifth and final member of the family finally caught it last night. Just want to share a quick thought. For anyone who thinks bednets are beautiful, exotic, or even romantic...
Imagine how much fun they are to clean after your child has vomited on them. That's all, folks! It's a long weekend here, and if today is any indication, it's going to be a very long weekend indeed.
Imagine how much fun they are to clean after your child has vomited on them. That's all, folks! It's a long weekend here, and if today is any indication, it's going to be a very long weekend indeed.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Discontented Ramblings
If that title doesn't draw you in, I'm not sure what will...
Things in Dhaka have been what I'll call "less than ideal" for a while now. The on-going blockade of the city and the accompanying hartals have necessitated what amounts to a lockdown inside the diplomatic enclave for quite some time. While I might not have gone to any stores or visited around the city were this not happening, the fact that I CAN'T do those things just makes me a bit stir crazy.
Even within the enclave, we are facing restrictions in which roads we can use at different times of the day due to the likelihood of protests involving cocktails (the equivalent of weak flash-bang grenades) and petrol bombs (similar to molotov cocktails). I'm not usually a social butterfly by any means, but, again, these restrictions just make me antsy.
Additionally, due to unrelated (mostly) issues, our commissary is slowly but surely running out of food. Were the local grocery store easy to get to, this wouldn't be a huge problem. However, it's on one of those roads that we can't be on most of the day. They have not had dry cat food since we got here, and I've been unsuccessful so far in cracking the code on how big of a bag I can buy that will actually get shipped here. So far, both bags I've attempted to order have been rejected and shipped back. Awesome.
Our car continues to give us issues. Sometimes I wish I'd studied auto mechanics before coming overseas - I definitely wouldn't lack for customers. So far, we've flushed the radiator, replaced the water and oil pumps, replaced the head gasket, replaced the brakes, flushed the radiator again (since they mixed antifreezes at some point creating a fine mess), and had some electrical work done since stepping on the brakes would make the headlights turn on. All of this from a car that was in "good mechanical condition" according to the previous owner.
In local news, an arrest warrant has been issued for the leader of the opposition party (BNP) and there's no real way to know what will happen if they actually take her into custody. Also, a few days ago, an American citizen was hacked to death with meat cleavers downtown. He was Bangladeshi-born and well-known as an atheist blogger which some apparently felt was justification for murdering him in front of his wife.
And now my lack of cat food seems a petty concern.
Things in Dhaka have been what I'll call "less than ideal" for a while now. The on-going blockade of the city and the accompanying hartals have necessitated what amounts to a lockdown inside the diplomatic enclave for quite some time. While I might not have gone to any stores or visited around the city were this not happening, the fact that I CAN'T do those things just makes me a bit stir crazy.
Even within the enclave, we are facing restrictions in which roads we can use at different times of the day due to the likelihood of protests involving cocktails (the equivalent of weak flash-bang grenades) and petrol bombs (similar to molotov cocktails). I'm not usually a social butterfly by any means, but, again, these restrictions just make me antsy.
Additionally, due to unrelated (mostly) issues, our commissary is slowly but surely running out of food. Were the local grocery store easy to get to, this wouldn't be a huge problem. However, it's on one of those roads that we can't be on most of the day. They have not had dry cat food since we got here, and I've been unsuccessful so far in cracking the code on how big of a bag I can buy that will actually get shipped here. So far, both bags I've attempted to order have been rejected and shipped back. Awesome.
Our car continues to give us issues. Sometimes I wish I'd studied auto mechanics before coming overseas - I definitely wouldn't lack for customers. So far, we've flushed the radiator, replaced the water and oil pumps, replaced the head gasket, replaced the brakes, flushed the radiator again (since they mixed antifreezes at some point creating a fine mess), and had some electrical work done since stepping on the brakes would make the headlights turn on. All of this from a car that was in "good mechanical condition" according to the previous owner.
In local news, an arrest warrant has been issued for the leader of the opposition party (BNP) and there's no real way to know what will happen if they actually take her into custody. Also, a few days ago, an American citizen was hacked to death with meat cleavers downtown. He was Bangladeshi-born and well-known as an atheist blogger which some apparently felt was justification for murdering him in front of his wife.
And now my lack of cat food seems a petty concern.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Faster and Furious-er
That's right - it's time for Dhaka: The Sequel...
To spare all of you, I will sum up. On December 19th of last year, we found out - to our happiness - that we would be expanding our family by one in August. On December 20th of last year, the assignments were released and we got another surprise. We were heading back to Dhaka! In August! Naturally, we had a bit of a conflict, but with some creative rearrangement and a short delay, everything fell into place. The kids and I packed out the house while Josh finished up some training out of state. After that, we all loaded up into the van and drove to Virginia where we would stay until after Mr. T was born. He surprised us by arriving 2 weeks early, but it was all for the best as it gave us more time to work through all the paperwork requirements of getting a newborn ready to go overseas.
The kids started school and shortly after, Josh left us to start work. Many phone calls and e-mails later, we managed to get passports and tickets for all of us. Josh was even able to fly home and help us get back. The flights were fairly uneventful - 5 people, 10 suitcases, 5 carry-on bags, and 2 cat carriers - and relatively short. Total travel time once we were en-route was only about 20 hours. By a stroke of luck, we were temporarily placed in the same house we lived in the last time we were here. This made the transition fairly easy for the whole family.
B got a week off to adjust and get his sleep back on schedule and then he headed to school where he has been enjoying meeting lots of new friends - and some old ones as well. K has been home helping out with Mr. T and being a pretty good "big sister".
There have been a few changes for the better while we were gone. First, traffic has improved at least in the local area. I haven't ventured down near my tailor's shop yet, but I can get to things in the neighborhood faster than I used to be able to. Second, the commissary has made a lot of improvements and we now have more of a variety of foods available. Also in the food department, there is a new-ish grocery store that carries bread, fresh produce, meat, and luxury items (at a cost of course). The Lindt dark chocolate and hazelnut bar I was looking at yesterday was just over $10. So.... I didn't buy that, but I definitely thought about it.
Many things have remain unchanged, and that's mostly a good thing. There is real goodness in Dhaka. Life here, however hectic work might be, is still slow and family-intensive. The office is all of a half mile away, and while the tether of the Blackberry follows us everywhere, it has a vibrate mode so at least we don't have to listen to it. There's plenty of time for relaxation, games, puzzles, movies, and more. I have realized that in the busy-ness that pervades US life, I have sadly neglected to pass on my love of board games and card games to my children. It's now a work in progress.
My bread baking is going well again, and I find that I really missed it when we were stateside. How often did I really have a three hour block to mix the dough, wait for it to rise, and bake it? Probably never. Here, I can bake any day I want. There is such freedom that comes when we eliminate so much of the unnecessary "stuff". Freedom to really spend time with your family and do the things you truly enjoy. And laundry. Don't forget to do the laundry :)
To spare all of you, I will sum up. On December 19th of last year, we found out - to our happiness - that we would be expanding our family by one in August. On December 20th of last year, the assignments were released and we got another surprise. We were heading back to Dhaka! In August! Naturally, we had a bit of a conflict, but with some creative rearrangement and a short delay, everything fell into place. The kids and I packed out the house while Josh finished up some training out of state. After that, we all loaded up into the van and drove to Virginia where we would stay until after Mr. T was born. He surprised us by arriving 2 weeks early, but it was all for the best as it gave us more time to work through all the paperwork requirements of getting a newborn ready to go overseas.
The kids started school and shortly after, Josh left us to start work. Many phone calls and e-mails later, we managed to get passports and tickets for all of us. Josh was even able to fly home and help us get back. The flights were fairly uneventful - 5 people, 10 suitcases, 5 carry-on bags, and 2 cat carriers - and relatively short. Total travel time once we were en-route was only about 20 hours. By a stroke of luck, we were temporarily placed in the same house we lived in the last time we were here. This made the transition fairly easy for the whole family.
B got a week off to adjust and get his sleep back on schedule and then he headed to school where he has been enjoying meeting lots of new friends - and some old ones as well. K has been home helping out with Mr. T and being a pretty good "big sister".
There have been a few changes for the better while we were gone. First, traffic has improved at least in the local area. I haven't ventured down near my tailor's shop yet, but I can get to things in the neighborhood faster than I used to be able to. Second, the commissary has made a lot of improvements and we now have more of a variety of foods available. Also in the food department, there is a new-ish grocery store that carries bread, fresh produce, meat, and luxury items (at a cost of course). The Lindt dark chocolate and hazelnut bar I was looking at yesterday was just over $10. So.... I didn't buy that, but I definitely thought about it.
Many things have remain unchanged, and that's mostly a good thing. There is real goodness in Dhaka. Life here, however hectic work might be, is still slow and family-intensive. The office is all of a half mile away, and while the tether of the Blackberry follows us everywhere, it has a vibrate mode so at least we don't have to listen to it. There's plenty of time for relaxation, games, puzzles, movies, and more. I have realized that in the busy-ness that pervades US life, I have sadly neglected to pass on my love of board games and card games to my children. It's now a work in progress.
My bread baking is going well again, and I find that I really missed it when we were stateside. How often did I really have a three hour block to mix the dough, wait for it to rise, and bake it? Probably never. Here, I can bake any day I want. There is such freedom that comes when we eliminate so much of the unnecessary "stuff". Freedom to really spend time with your family and do the things you truly enjoy. And laundry. Don't forget to do the laundry :)
Monday, March 24, 2014
We interrupt your regularly scheduled broadcast...
If you caught my post on Facebook a while back, you'll know we are returning to Dhaka. Depending on the day, little people in our house are either really looking forward to this move, or really NOT looking forward to the move. It's difficult to sort out the basis for these feelings, but they're generally related to things like friends, family, and school. In my mind, these are all valid reasons to feel ambivalent or even upset about moving. But that doesn't stop the wheel from turning.
On that note, we got our RFO while I was off gallivanting with the kids on Spring Break. We've had a few unexpected changes to our timeline. We originally planned for Josh to finish up the summer cycle at Florida State, then do some additional Army training, and finally take some leave before we all headed back overseas. Our landlord is only letting us stay through the end of July (graduation is the first week of August), so we already knew we'd be packing out while Josh was still in school. As it happens however, he needs to finish up early because he needs to get overseas faster. And so he will be away training while the kids and I supervise the packing. This could go really well, or not.
The second piece of this ever-changing puzzle is that we will not be able to accompany him when he flies. We're all a little bit sad about this (mostly me, because I'll be traveling with the kids). But because we always like to have a bit of drama in our lives, we have some news. While we left Dhaka last summer as a family of four, we will be returning as a family of five! What aspect of international move planning doesn't become even more fun when you incorporate a newborn??
From packing up and shipping baby clothes in July for a baby who won't even be born for another month, to figuring out how to purchase plane tickets and apply for a passport for an as yet unnamed child, or trying to figure out how to pack a suitcase that has space for maternity, nursing, and normal clothes, our lives have taken on a new level of complexity. And we couldn't be happier.
On that note, we got our RFO while I was off gallivanting with the kids on Spring Break. We've had a few unexpected changes to our timeline. We originally planned for Josh to finish up the summer cycle at Florida State, then do some additional Army training, and finally take some leave before we all headed back overseas. Our landlord is only letting us stay through the end of July (graduation is the first week of August), so we already knew we'd be packing out while Josh was still in school. As it happens however, he needs to finish up early because he needs to get overseas faster. And so he will be away training while the kids and I supervise the packing. This could go really well, or not.
The second piece of this ever-changing puzzle is that we will not be able to accompany him when he flies. We're all a little bit sad about this (mostly me, because I'll be traveling with the kids). But because we always like to have a bit of drama in our lives, we have some news. While we left Dhaka last summer as a family of four, we will be returning as a family of five! What aspect of international move planning doesn't become even more fun when you incorporate a newborn??
From packing up and shipping baby clothes in July for a baby who won't even be born for another month, to figuring out how to purchase plane tickets and apply for a passport for an as yet unnamed child, or trying to figure out how to pack a suitcase that has space for maternity, nursing, and normal clothes, our lives have taken on a new level of complexity. And we couldn't be happier.
Monday, August 26, 2013
News from Florida
I bet you thought I was gone. Like really and truly gone. Maybe "hoped" is a better word. No such luck.
As I sit here in my house full of furniture from storage and unpack boxes of UAB items, I have plenty of time to reflect on just how little thought I gave to the whole "storage" thing. As much as I agonized over what to send or not send in our HHG, UAB, and consumables, I gave virtually no thought to the items I put in storage other than to acknowledge that they were things I would not want to have while we were overseas. You see, the beauty of most embassies is that they are very used to people showing up with nothing but the clothes on their back (and those they managed to cram into a suitcase). Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find... We walked into a fully furnished apartment where someone had even already done all of our grocery shopping for us to get us ready for the first few days. We had pots, pans, dishes, glassware, a television, an iron... I could go on, but you get the point. Essentially we had everything we required.
Leaving Dhaka, we gave great thought to the items we put in our UAB (after contacting Student Detachment to have to them authorize a UAB shipment for us since it was not included in our original orders). We put in a set of sheets for each bed, towels for each person, a small television, the all-in-one printer, kitchen knives, extra clothes, the DVD player - everything we thought we'd need "right away". We flew from Dhaka on the 22nd of June (I think?? - it's been too long...) and signed the lease on our new place in Florida on 1 July with high hopes that our UAB would arrive within the first 2 weeks of July. Here it is, the end of August, and our UAB just showed up. In theory, it came by air, so the delay was not in the actual transport phase. But when we got an e-mail 3 weeks after our departure from an embassy employee asking for Josh's rank (which was clearly indicated in the signature block of the e-mail he had sent them only a few days before) before he could submit the paperwork for our shipment, I had a bit better of an indication of the sort of timeline to expect. Submitting the paperwork is of course only the first step. Then the funding has to be approved. Then the shipment has to clear customs. Perhaps most importantly, the hartals have to stop long enough for airline employees to actually be at work loading planes. <sigh>
So as much as I had good intentions when I packed my UAB, really I needed to put more thought into what we left in storage. Really, my storage should have included:
- at least one small-ish TV (TV, phone, and internet generally require that you actually have a television and phone ready to be plugged in before they will schedule you for installation; as much as we wanted internet, we had no phone and no TV)
- at least one set of sheets/pillow/blanket/mattress pad/waterproof cover for each bed
- bath and hand towels
- kitchen towels and at least one hot pad
- ideally, I'd love to have dishes and a set of silverware in my storage, but I think that might just be too much extra "stuff" for me to hang on to
- a phone (see note above on TV)
- basic kitchen implements
Since Josh and I were both in the Army, and weren't always stationed in the same place, we already have most kitchen items in multiple. For example, I have not one, not two, but three colanders. Ask me where they are. Just ask me. That's right. All 3 went to Dhaka. One fortunately made it in to the UAB shipment, so I have it now, but I really just wasn't thinking. For all of the "extra" mixing bowls I have, you'd think I might have left at least one or two in storage...
So my warning to everyone who is getting ready to head overseas is this: Think about the return trip as well and try to plan for only having your "storage" items for two months or longer after your return. Think about what you will want/need and what you're willing to buy in duplicate.
Note to self - read this post again before you pack up a year from now...
Anyone else excited that open assignments will be posted in less than a month??
As I sit here in my house full of furniture from storage and unpack boxes of UAB items, I have plenty of time to reflect on just how little thought I gave to the whole "storage" thing. As much as I agonized over what to send or not send in our HHG, UAB, and consumables, I gave virtually no thought to the items I put in storage other than to acknowledge that they were things I would not want to have while we were overseas. You see, the beauty of most embassies is that they are very used to people showing up with nothing but the clothes on their back (and those they managed to cram into a suitcase). Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find... We walked into a fully furnished apartment where someone had even already done all of our grocery shopping for us to get us ready for the first few days. We had pots, pans, dishes, glassware, a television, an iron... I could go on, but you get the point. Essentially we had everything we required.
Leaving Dhaka, we gave great thought to the items we put in our UAB (after contacting Student Detachment to have to them authorize a UAB shipment for us since it was not included in our original orders). We put in a set of sheets for each bed, towels for each person, a small television, the all-in-one printer, kitchen knives, extra clothes, the DVD player - everything we thought we'd need "right away". We flew from Dhaka on the 22nd of June (I think?? - it's been too long...) and signed the lease on our new place in Florida on 1 July with high hopes that our UAB would arrive within the first 2 weeks of July. Here it is, the end of August, and our UAB just showed up. In theory, it came by air, so the delay was not in the actual transport phase. But when we got an e-mail 3 weeks after our departure from an embassy employee asking for Josh's rank (which was clearly indicated in the signature block of the e-mail he had sent them only a few days before) before he could submit the paperwork for our shipment, I had a bit better of an indication of the sort of timeline to expect. Submitting the paperwork is of course only the first step. Then the funding has to be approved. Then the shipment has to clear customs. Perhaps most importantly, the hartals have to stop long enough for airline employees to actually be at work loading planes. <sigh>
So as much as I had good intentions when I packed my UAB, really I needed to put more thought into what we left in storage. Really, my storage should have included:
- at least one small-ish TV (TV, phone, and internet generally require that you actually have a television and phone ready to be plugged in before they will schedule you for installation; as much as we wanted internet, we had no phone and no TV)
- at least one set of sheets/pillow/blanket/mattress pad/waterproof cover for each bed
- bath and hand towels
- kitchen towels and at least one hot pad
- ideally, I'd love to have dishes and a set of silverware in my storage, but I think that might just be too much extra "stuff" for me to hang on to
- a phone (see note above on TV)
- basic kitchen implements
Since Josh and I were both in the Army, and weren't always stationed in the same place, we already have most kitchen items in multiple. For example, I have not one, not two, but three colanders. Ask me where they are. Just ask me. That's right. All 3 went to Dhaka. One fortunately made it in to the UAB shipment, so I have it now, but I really just wasn't thinking. For all of the "extra" mixing bowls I have, you'd think I might have left at least one or two in storage...
So my warning to everyone who is getting ready to head overseas is this: Think about the return trip as well and try to plan for only having your "storage" items for two months or longer after your return. Think about what you will want/need and what you're willing to buy in duplicate.
Note to self - read this post again before you pack up a year from now...
Anyone else excited that open assignments will be posted in less than a month??
Monday, June 3, 2013
We're Coming Home!
Sometime.
Yes, you all knew it would happen. Eventually they have to let us come home. And now for the million dollar question: WHEN?
Turns out no one really knows. While Josh was on his latest and last jaunt to India, we received our RFO sending us back stateside for graduate school. As exciting as it was to receive that little piece of paper (okay, fine, e-mail), now we start the next waiting game for orders. A "normal" Army company contains anywhere from 40-200 Soldiers depending on the location and mission. When a "normal" Soldier gets an RFO, it gets sent to the Personnel Services Battalion on post that processes it and turns it in to orders once the Soldier takes care of getting their company commander to sign and approve their leave form. This process naturally becomes a bit more complicated when you're assigned to a detachment that is in charge of every student in the Army who is assigned anywhere in the world. So the Student Detachment, as it's called, oversees somewhere over 2,000 Soldiers at any given time. And all of those Soldiers are somewhere in the process of arriving at a new duty station (which requires large amounts of paperwork for inprocessing), hanging out to attend school, and leaving (which also requires some paperwork). This detachment does not work the same days we do (standard M-F work week), nor are they even remotely in the same time zone. So anything we send out on the last day of our work week (Thursday) has no chance of even being seen until Monday night our time. Then, if we need any sort of action taken, assuming the stars are alligned, everyone is at work, doing their job that day, we might get an e-mail indicating they are processing the action. That, unfortunately rarely happens. Is it frustrating? Sure. But who doesn't expect a long wait when they call customer service of a big corporation - this is busy season for Army moving after all.
In the case of our orders, we actually heard back the day after we sent in the required paperwork that they had received the packet. It was the cause of a small party in our house. Receiving the packet is only half the battle though as there are any number of formatting issues that could cause them to kick back the packet and we would start all over. To date, that has not happened. And so we are still scheduled to have our move-out survey next week and have all of our Dhaka possessions picked up 4 days later. Of course, if the orders don't come, we can't do that.
We're not buying plane tickets yet, so I guess that tells you how we're feeling right about now ;)
Yes, you all knew it would happen. Eventually they have to let us come home. And now for the million dollar question: WHEN?
Turns out no one really knows. While Josh was on his latest and last jaunt to India, we received our RFO sending us back stateside for graduate school. As exciting as it was to receive that little piece of paper (okay, fine, e-mail), now we start the next waiting game for orders. A "normal" Army company contains anywhere from 40-200 Soldiers depending on the location and mission. When a "normal" Soldier gets an RFO, it gets sent to the Personnel Services Battalion on post that processes it and turns it in to orders once the Soldier takes care of getting their company commander to sign and approve their leave form. This process naturally becomes a bit more complicated when you're assigned to a detachment that is in charge of every student in the Army who is assigned anywhere in the world. So the Student Detachment, as it's called, oversees somewhere over 2,000 Soldiers at any given time. And all of those Soldiers are somewhere in the process of arriving at a new duty station (which requires large amounts of paperwork for inprocessing), hanging out to attend school, and leaving (which also requires some paperwork). This detachment does not work the same days we do (standard M-F work week), nor are they even remotely in the same time zone. So anything we send out on the last day of our work week (Thursday) has no chance of even being seen until Monday night our time. Then, if we need any sort of action taken, assuming the stars are alligned, everyone is at work, doing their job that day, we might get an e-mail indicating they are processing the action. That, unfortunately rarely happens. Is it frustrating? Sure. But who doesn't expect a long wait when they call customer service of a big corporation - this is busy season for Army moving after all.
In the case of our orders, we actually heard back the day after we sent in the required paperwork that they had received the packet. It was the cause of a small party in our house. Receiving the packet is only half the battle though as there are any number of formatting issues that could cause them to kick back the packet and we would start all over. To date, that has not happened. And so we are still scheduled to have our move-out survey next week and have all of our Dhaka possessions picked up 4 days later. Of course, if the orders don't come, we can't do that.
We're not buying plane tickets yet, so I guess that tells you how we're feeling right about now ;)
Sunday, May 5, 2013
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.
---------
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.
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.
---------
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 24th carrying dry mixed and freeze
cargo.
As
always, we thank you for your kind understanding, patience and support to the
Commissary!
----------
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:
-----------
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.
----------
Saturday, April 20, 2013
14 Months in to our 12 Month Tour
Strange? Yes. But if you're going to do something, you might as well live it up. Traditionally, In Region Training (IRT) is just a 12 month tour. Unfortunately for families with children, the Bangladeshi staff college begins in April and ends in February. This doesn't really match up with school dates for the kids - one of the main reasons that the staff college has an elementary school at Mirpur that runs from April to February :) Again, unfortunately, this school is not accredited by American standards, so it would not have really done us much good to send B there for the year.
Once we were getting closer to the end of our tour, we asked if we could stay for a few extra months to allow B to finish out his school year which ends in June. I believe the official response was something along the lines of "we currently see no reason why you can't do this, but we remain free to change our minds at any point in time."
And so here we are. The up side of this is that staff college attendance is pretty involved, and doesn't necessarily allow for a lot of embassy time or a lot of travel. Josh is now (for the most part) fully integrated in DAO and will also have an opportunity to do some additional India travel before we leave. Naturally, I will stay in Dhaka and hang out with the kids :)
So what is life like post-staff college? The kids and I get to eat breakfast with Josh every morning, he works a standard 8/9ish to 5ish schedule, and he's both close to home and semi-reachable by phone. He's taken a few small trips within the country, but hasn't been gone for more than a few days at a time, which the kids seem pretty okay with. All in all, a fairly relaxed atmosphere. It's strange to me that so many people who participate in IRT ONLY experience this part. The staff college really forced both Josh and I to get out and get involved in Bangladeshi military culture; we both view this as a good thing. I know every experience is different, but I can't imagine having such an up-close and personal look without staff college. Then again, we were also very busy, and had mandatory evening events almost every week, sometimes multiple times per week. Up sides and down sides...
We have welcomed in the newest American staff college attendee - a non FAO - and I believe he's settling in. We're working on re-homing our staff and also selling on car, but this is complicated by having no idea when we're supposed to leave. With the current budget issues, all decisions for graduate school (our likely next step) are on hold. This means we are in a bit of limbo. We could get orders next week, or we could still be sitting here in August waiting. I'm really hoping for more of the first and less of the second. I'm looking at housing, but we don't know where we're going for sure, nor do we know when we will be there, so other than keeping an eye on the market, there's not much I can do.
Do I like to be this flexible? Not really. But this type of uncertainty just kind of comes with the territory sometimes.
Once we were getting closer to the end of our tour, we asked if we could stay for a few extra months to allow B to finish out his school year which ends in June. I believe the official response was something along the lines of "we currently see no reason why you can't do this, but we remain free to change our minds at any point in time."
And so here we are. The up side of this is that staff college attendance is pretty involved, and doesn't necessarily allow for a lot of embassy time or a lot of travel. Josh is now (for the most part) fully integrated in DAO and will also have an opportunity to do some additional India travel before we leave. Naturally, I will stay in Dhaka and hang out with the kids :)
So what is life like post-staff college? The kids and I get to eat breakfast with Josh every morning, he works a standard 8/9ish to 5ish schedule, and he's both close to home and semi-reachable by phone. He's taken a few small trips within the country, but hasn't been gone for more than a few days at a time, which the kids seem pretty okay with. All in all, a fairly relaxed atmosphere. It's strange to me that so many people who participate in IRT ONLY experience this part. The staff college really forced both Josh and I to get out and get involved in Bangladeshi military culture; we both view this as a good thing. I know every experience is different, but I can't imagine having such an up-close and personal look without staff college. Then again, we were also very busy, and had mandatory evening events almost every week, sometimes multiple times per week. Up sides and down sides...
We have welcomed in the newest American staff college attendee - a non FAO - and I believe he's settling in. We're working on re-homing our staff and also selling on car, but this is complicated by having no idea when we're supposed to leave. With the current budget issues, all decisions for graduate school (our likely next step) are on hold. This means we are in a bit of limbo. We could get orders next week, or we could still be sitting here in August waiting. I'm really hoping for more of the first and less of the second. I'm looking at housing, but we don't know where we're going for sure, nor do we know when we will be there, so other than keeping an eye on the market, there's not much I can do.
Do I like to be this flexible? Not really. But this type of uncertainty just kind of comes with the territory sometimes.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
To Write or not to write...
Isn't that the question? I chose to take a break for a while - mainly because I feel like my writing quality tends to suffer when I force myself to write, and as I'm not exactly a master of words as is, I have to wait for my peak writing periods :)
Dhaka continues to be a source of never-ending emotions. Sometimes we're overwhelmed with wonder, sometimes frustration, but we're always feeling "somthing" here. The past few weeks, we've been making the international news with the results of the war crimes tribunals being announced. It's been a bit turbulent, but not a lot of disturbances near where we live. We've also been fortunate to host a guest for the past few weeks - a visiting South Asia FAO. Life here gets to be very routine, so we've appreciated the opportunity to talk to another adult on a regular basis (okay, so really, I've appreciated this more than my other half since he gets to talk to grown-ups all the time...).
Life overseas presents great opportunities. Probably the best of those is the school that B gets to attend. Where else could you get someone to pay for your kids to go to a top rated private school? Certainly not anywhere in the US, at least not anywhere we've been yet. But at the same time, there are challenges. Josh has been accepted to 2 grad school programs back in the US, which is likely to be our next stop. All things being equal, we should be leaving here in 3 months to start that new adventure, but of course we don't know which school we're going to, we don't have orders, and we don't know when we might. So the downside of this awesome life we lead is that we also learn to live with large amounts of uncertainty. I tend to view our lifestyle in much the same way that I view my spiritual life - I accept that even when I don't understand the plan, I know there is one, and I just need to be patient and trusting. Perhaps this trust is misplaced when it comes to the Army, but the thought brings me a small amount of peace, so I'm going to go with it. Through all of the ups and downs, we've been well taken care of in our Army career, and I'm sure our next step will reveal itself in time.
On the note of other exciting opportunities we have experienced here in Bangladesh, Josh and I took a trip a few weeks ago to visit the Beximco plant just north of the city. Beximco is the largest private sector corporation in the country, and they manufacture a range of goods from clothing to fine china. Our plant tour took us through the factory where they were sewing multi-colored jeans ready to be exported to Wal-Mart as well as their "factory store" where they sell bone china at significantly reduced prices. For those not aware, Beximco is the supplier for well-known name brand china companies such as Royal Doulton. Since it's kind of the "thing to do" and we'd much prefer to leave our wedding china packaged up state-side when we're overseas, we decided to pick up some new bone china. Our grand total for 12 place settings including serving pieces (and a full tea and coffee service with 24 cups and saucers) just was under $400. That's right. It pays to live at the source - even if only for a year or two. And naturally, everything was delivered to my house free of charge. Did it require many phone calls to "clarify" the order and actually confirm everything? Sure. But I consider that the price of doing business. And in the end, I'm happy with what we got.
So, in theory, our time here is growing short, although it's difficult to see the end when it's some nebulous thing off in the distance. The kids are definitely anxious to see family back home, and ask on a routine basis when we can go ride on an airplane to see everyone. But we're also determined to enjoy our time here to the fullest, and we're not in a rush to get home. One breath at a time.
Dhaka continues to be a source of never-ending emotions. Sometimes we're overwhelmed with wonder, sometimes frustration, but we're always feeling "somthing" here. The past few weeks, we've been making the international news with the results of the war crimes tribunals being announced. It's been a bit turbulent, but not a lot of disturbances near where we live. We've also been fortunate to host a guest for the past few weeks - a visiting South Asia FAO. Life here gets to be very routine, so we've appreciated the opportunity to talk to another adult on a regular basis (okay, so really, I've appreciated this more than my other half since he gets to talk to grown-ups all the time...).
Life overseas presents great opportunities. Probably the best of those is the school that B gets to attend. Where else could you get someone to pay for your kids to go to a top rated private school? Certainly not anywhere in the US, at least not anywhere we've been yet. But at the same time, there are challenges. Josh has been accepted to 2 grad school programs back in the US, which is likely to be our next stop. All things being equal, we should be leaving here in 3 months to start that new adventure, but of course we don't know which school we're going to, we don't have orders, and we don't know when we might. So the downside of this awesome life we lead is that we also learn to live with large amounts of uncertainty. I tend to view our lifestyle in much the same way that I view my spiritual life - I accept that even when I don't understand the plan, I know there is one, and I just need to be patient and trusting. Perhaps this trust is misplaced when it comes to the Army, but the thought brings me a small amount of peace, so I'm going to go with it. Through all of the ups and downs, we've been well taken care of in our Army career, and I'm sure our next step will reveal itself in time.
On the note of other exciting opportunities we have experienced here in Bangladesh, Josh and I took a trip a few weeks ago to visit the Beximco plant just north of the city. Beximco is the largest private sector corporation in the country, and they manufacture a range of goods from clothing to fine china. Our plant tour took us through the factory where they were sewing multi-colored jeans ready to be exported to Wal-Mart as well as their "factory store" where they sell bone china at significantly reduced prices. For those not aware, Beximco is the supplier for well-known name brand china companies such as Royal Doulton. Since it's kind of the "thing to do" and we'd much prefer to leave our wedding china packaged up state-side when we're overseas, we decided to pick up some new bone china. Our grand total for 12 place settings including serving pieces (and a full tea and coffee service with 24 cups and saucers) just was under $400. That's right. It pays to live at the source - even if only for a year or two. And naturally, everything was delivered to my house free of charge. Did it require many phone calls to "clarify" the order and actually confirm everything? Sure. But I consider that the price of doing business. And in the end, I'm happy with what we got.
So, in theory, our time here is growing short, although it's difficult to see the end when it's some nebulous thing off in the distance. The kids are definitely anxious to see family back home, and ask on a routine basis when we can go ride on an airplane to see everyone. But we're also determined to enjoy our time here to the fullest, and we're not in a rush to get home. One breath at a time.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
The Itch
I might not like to move, but I also don't really care for ... stagnating - for lack of a better word. As I write this post, I have not left the city of Dhaka (and specifically a very small portion of that city) since July of this year. I suppose that's not totally true. I did just get to go on an all day picnic experience with the Staff College in the days before Christmas. And to do that, I had to get up early, get the kids up early, ride a bus for 5 hours, and got sick from eating the contaminated (yes, contaminated) food they served us. So ... that was the last time I left the city. Might make you think I wasn't anxious to do it again, but truly, TRULY I feel the need to go somewhere.
Here I was thinking our IRT year was going to be all about exciting travel, but really, all I get to do is stay home. Part of this is my own doing of course since I spent a large portion of my fall - and plan to spend a large portion of my spring - working on my masters program. Having an online program is great, but I definitely don't have the flexibility to take off for a week (or longer) when I'm supposed to be contributing 3-4 times per week to online forums. Internet reliability in hotels in the region is questionable at best in some locations. Additionally, B's school schedule doesn't really facilitate us going with Josh when he travels. The other overseas families all live at Mirpur Cantonment, and there is a school there which exists solely for the kids of students attending the Staff College. So the school year runs from April until February and the holidays match those of the Staff College. Of course, this school is not accredited in any way, so it's really not an option for us even though it would be nice to have Josh's school breaks line up with B's. And so with a very few exceptions, B and Josh are not home at the same times.
We anticipate at this point that we'll be sticking around for a few months at the completion of Staff College to allow B to finish out his school year, and that would be a great time to travel since Josh won't be on a strictly defined schedule, except for the fact that, you know, B is in school. And when he's on break (for Spring Break), I've got 2 classes going on. So I'm about to pull my hair out realizing that I might never actually leave this city. Ever. Okay, now I'm just being dramatic. Obviously I get to leave. But I feel ridiculous thinking that in the 16 months we will live here, I will have left Dhaka to travel on only one occasion. No India, no Nepal, no side trip just to relax somewhere. Instead, the two week trip we took as soon as we arrived here, to Sri Lanka, will be the sum total of my overseas travel. And that just makes me feel... itchy. I mean, who comes all this way and doesn't at least get to see the Taj Mahal, right?
Friday, December 7, 2012
Groceries
Well, we've been in Dhaka for just shy of 10 months now, and we have recently found out that we will likely stay for another 6 months (taking us 4 months past our one year IRT tour) so that B can finish out the school year over here. As I reflect on our lifestyle and start making notes for our next overseas tour (whenever that might be) one thing really stands out. We need to make better use of our consumables allowance. This isn't really something anyone can tell you ahead of time, because it's tough to visualize the sorts of foods you really want to ship (and know what things will be expensive) until after you've lived here for a while. When you live with kids - who have ever-changing tastes - this is also tough. I have three totally unopened large containers of oatmeal because my kids (and my husband) really, REALLY like oatmeal. But strangely, they're not eating it here. Instead, everyone seems to opt for blueberry pop-tarts.
I think the first big adjustment for me was having to buy all name-brand products. I know some people shop this way all the time, but I don't. I buy generic whenever I can and with the exception of Kirkland's macaroni and cheese (which is truly awful), I am generally very pleased by the quality. Please, if you take one thing away from this post, never buy that macaroni and cheese. This is actually one of the main reasons I don't generally shop at the commissary when we're stateside. I just don't see the savings they promise because I don't normally buy name-brand items at the grocery store. So really, if I was stateside and bought only name-brand items, I'm sure our grocery bill would be higher to begin with. But add to that the fact that our overseas commissary (not actually affiliated with DeCA, but generally sourced from DeCA products) adds a significant surcharge on to commissary prices to cover the expense of shipping, and prices for food here can be a bit silly. Take for instance peanut butter which is currently running over $8 for a 40 oz container, or Cheez-Its which run just shy of $4 per box. Do I think I'm getting ripped off? No, I'm sure the commissary is charging me a fair price relative to what they pay for these things, but it doesn't make it much easier to bear.
Cereal generally starts at $5 per box and goes up from there; canned goods (vegetables, beans, etc) start at $1.50 per can. I've honestly mostly stopped paying attention to the prices when I shop since we don't have any alternative. As much as I hate to pay those prices, we have to eat something. Some people ship in food in large quantities (www.amazon.com or buythecase.net), but I've often found that once I add in shipping - if required - the prices aren't that different than what I'm paying at the commissary. So I've just essentially given up trying to save money on food.
And now for the (potentially) helpful portion of this. We as a family need to make much better use of our consumables allowance the next time we go overseas. While we can't make up for the ridiculous prices on things like meat, cheese, and yogurt, we can at least ship cases of cereal, lunch-box treats, crackers, canned goods, and spaghetti sauce. With those items alone, I'd save quite a bit (since we go through them so quickly). One member of our family - who shall remain nameless - made the executive decision that we didn't need to ship these items because "they are available at the commissary", but I really think next time I need to put my foot down. There's a big difference between "available" and "reasonably priced". I could be concerned with pesky things like expiration dates on all this food purchased in advance, but over half the items I purchase here are either expired, or close to it, so really, what's the difference. I have cheddar cheese in my freezer downstairs that has a best buy date of sometime mid-2011. I'm not kidding. While I am thankful most days that these things ARE available, I feel a bit... annoyed that because the military gives us a consumables allowance, they feel no need to give us any sort of COLA that would be commensurate with the actual expenses we incur just shopping for groceries.
Sadly, I feel like this information might only be useful if we come back here to Dhaka, as each country has their own type of commissary. For example, our friends in Sri Lanka do not have any refrigerated or frozen items available. Then again, some other countries in our region tend to have more things available to them on the economy. I feel like we have altered our diet while living here to make best use of the foods that are available, and I'm sure we would do the same in any new location. Here's hoping we can continue to remain flexible and do our best to make use of the opportunities available to us.
I think the first big adjustment for me was having to buy all name-brand products. I know some people shop this way all the time, but I don't. I buy generic whenever I can and with the exception of Kirkland's macaroni and cheese (which is truly awful), I am generally very pleased by the quality. Please, if you take one thing away from this post, never buy that macaroni and cheese. This is actually one of the main reasons I don't generally shop at the commissary when we're stateside. I just don't see the savings they promise because I don't normally buy name-brand items at the grocery store. So really, if I was stateside and bought only name-brand items, I'm sure our grocery bill would be higher to begin with. But add to that the fact that our overseas commissary (not actually affiliated with DeCA, but generally sourced from DeCA products) adds a significant surcharge on to commissary prices to cover the expense of shipping, and prices for food here can be a bit silly. Take for instance peanut butter which is currently running over $8 for a 40 oz container, or Cheez-Its which run just shy of $4 per box. Do I think I'm getting ripped off? No, I'm sure the commissary is charging me a fair price relative to what they pay for these things, but it doesn't make it much easier to bear.
Cereal generally starts at $5 per box and goes up from there; canned goods (vegetables, beans, etc) start at $1.50 per can. I've honestly mostly stopped paying attention to the prices when I shop since we don't have any alternative. As much as I hate to pay those prices, we have to eat something. Some people ship in food in large quantities (www.amazon.com or buythecase.net), but I've often found that once I add in shipping - if required - the prices aren't that different than what I'm paying at the commissary. So I've just essentially given up trying to save money on food.
And now for the (potentially) helpful portion of this. We as a family need to make much better use of our consumables allowance the next time we go overseas. While we can't make up for the ridiculous prices on things like meat, cheese, and yogurt, we can at least ship cases of cereal, lunch-box treats, crackers, canned goods, and spaghetti sauce. With those items alone, I'd save quite a bit (since we go through them so quickly). One member of our family - who shall remain nameless - made the executive decision that we didn't need to ship these items because "they are available at the commissary", but I really think next time I need to put my foot down. There's a big difference between "available" and "reasonably priced". I could be concerned with pesky things like expiration dates on all this food purchased in advance, but over half the items I purchase here are either expired, or close to it, so really, what's the difference. I have cheddar cheese in my freezer downstairs that has a best buy date of sometime mid-2011. I'm not kidding. While I am thankful most days that these things ARE available, I feel a bit... annoyed that because the military gives us a consumables allowance, they feel no need to give us any sort of COLA that would be commensurate with the actual expenses we incur just shopping for groceries.
Sadly, I feel like this information might only be useful if we come back here to Dhaka, as each country has their own type of commissary. For example, our friends in Sri Lanka do not have any refrigerated or frozen items available. Then again, some other countries in our region tend to have more things available to them on the economy. I feel like we have altered our diet while living here to make best use of the foods that are available, and I'm sure we would do the same in any new location. Here's hoping we can continue to remain flexible and do our best to make use of the opportunities available to us.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
One Year Later
One year ago, we had already started making preparations for our "big trip". We spent the weekend in and around Sacramento (after a quick trip to the ER to remove popcorn kernels from B's ears). It's strange that while that trip seems so familiar to me and I can recall many of the things we did, it was also a long, long time ago. So many new things have happened! We've been here in Dhaka for nine months now. Sadly, I've had relatively few opportunities to travel even though we'd hoped to be able to travel together. We're all very happy that B is in school now, but given his issues getting adjusted to that new schedule, we've been loathe to pull him out. So, Josh has traveled alone most of the time. I look back and I'm a bit jealous of our ability to just make hotel reservations and take off for the weekend. With Josh's school, this is often totally impossible between social events, after-hours work, and "field trips". So my primary job is keeping the kids on a schedule.
I've successfully completed my first semester of grad school and I'm happy to report that while my grades aren't officially posted, I'm pretty sure I got an A in both classes. I've registered for my next set of classes and I only hope we're here in Dhaka through the end of the next semester so I can continue to focus on that instead of trying to squeeze class into the middle of an international move.
We celebrated K's third birthday on Friday - she's is such a big girl! Josh took her out to pick out a cake and she was so excited about it that rather than waiting until lunch, we had cake in the middle of the morning followed by presents. That evening, Josh and I attended the 237th birthday day of the United States Marine Corps. At embassies, this is often one of the largest social functions of the year, and if our experience was any indication, I can see why. If you've been to a few military balls before, I'm sure you remember the format: mediocre dinner, so-so guest speaker, 5 minutes of grown-up dancing followed by... Well, to spare my albeit limited audience, I'll just say we usually leave to avoid the embarrassing "dancing" of the younger crowd. Anyway, this is clearly a different sort of group here. I'm not sure I can really guess the average age of the people at our event, but we were definitely not the oldest or youngest. And the dance floor was beyond crowded late into the evening. I even got Josh to dance! So add some free alcohol into the equation and you have a recipe for success. Too bad Josh had to get up early the next morning to go on an all-day boat cruise for school.
And today, Veterans Day, B is at school, K is on a playdate, Josh is at school, and I'm enjoying the Masterchef Australia/How I Met Your Mother marathon and thinking about all of my friends, past and present, who have served this fine country in any capacity.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Have I got a deal for you!
After two repairs, it appears the motherboard on our two year old laptop is completely shot. Maybe it's just me, but I really think they should last longer than that... We thought we were still going to be okay and just have our local trusty repair shop take care of replacing the motherboard, but when I called to get an estimate of when they thought it would be ready, they said it would take 6 weeks to get the new motherboard in. 6 WEEKS!
Since I'm taking online classes and we have our country brief to Josh's classmates coming up, it wasn't terribly realistic to think we could go that long without the laptop working. And so, I made several trips to the ATM to withdraw enough cash to go purchase a new laptop.
My early inquiries about prices were met with the standard party line of a randomly high price (less than the price tag, but still high) followed by several lower offers. But since each store in the mall sells the same products, they know they're competing against eachother essentially and whoever is willing to quote the lowest price gets the sale.
Funny thing about laptops here in Bangladesh. They don't come with software. Like any software. We're talking no operating system here. So while I could purchase a fairly decent computer, if I wanted to actually use it, I was told to purchase pirated software (pirated Windows 7 and Microsoft Office were available for a small fee). Do I have anything against using pirated software? No. Not really. But we went through all that when we built computers while living in Korea where pirated software is also very common. It worked fine for a while, and then we started getting all kids of messages from Microsoft about how they "thought" we "might" be using an unofficial copy and eventually it stopped working altogether. If we just stayed in Korea, it probably wouldn't have been a problem. We just would have stopped by our local computer software store and picked up a new copy of the pirated software and all would have been fine. But since we eventually had to return to the states, we decided it would just be easier in the long run to purchase a real copy of an operating system (at the time, Windows XP) and be done with it. Considering that same computer (built 8 years ago) is still my backup computer and sitting upstairs in my office right now, I consider it a good investment.
Regardless, no one seemed to understand why I would object to having a pirated copy of software. It's apparently just the way it's done here. They sell you essentially a blank computer, and you load whatever you want. And strangely, it you go to the Toshiba-Asia website, they even show that each model of computer can be purchased without software if you so desire. I was starting to be concerned that buying a new laptop would not actually solve any of our problems.
But then, I remembered that I was still carrying around the hard drive from my old computer (which worked just fine) because I needed to pick up my computer from the repair shop as we were not getting it fixed. Once I produced this hard drive that had an authentic copy of Windows 7 on it, there was much excited discussion after which they told me that "of course" they could just copy the operating system from my old hard drive and put it on my new one.
So, then the guy from the store walked me downstairs to another store (this one appeared to actually be a Toshiba outlet of some sort) and left me there telling me to call him when I was ready to go. The Toshiba people loaded the drivers I needed onto the laptop, but essentially just left my old hard drive in my new laptop rather than copying anything. I guess it's a long and involved process (kind of like buying a computer?) and as I'd already been wandering around the computer mall for over 2 hours, I was ready to just let it go. He told me to come back another day if I wanted them to transfer everything to the new hard drive and then the new laptop would be much faster since my old hard drive is over half full.
As business over here is all about relationships, I have no doubt that I could walk in some time next week and they would remember me and know why I was there. So, after 3 hours, I left the computer market with a brand new laptop with my old hard drive and the promise of maybe having something more. At least we have what we need to make it through the next few weeks.
If I was in the US, I could have a better laptop fully loaded with software (and an operating system...) for less than I paid, but considering where I live, and considering that USPS still has their lithium battery shipping issue, I'll be happy enough with our outcome.
Since I'm taking online classes and we have our country brief to Josh's classmates coming up, it wasn't terribly realistic to think we could go that long without the laptop working. And so, I made several trips to the ATM to withdraw enough cash to go purchase a new laptop.
My early inquiries about prices were met with the standard party line of a randomly high price (less than the price tag, but still high) followed by several lower offers. But since each store in the mall sells the same products, they know they're competing against eachother essentially and whoever is willing to quote the lowest price gets the sale.
Funny thing about laptops here in Bangladesh. They don't come with software. Like any software. We're talking no operating system here. So while I could purchase a fairly decent computer, if I wanted to actually use it, I was told to purchase pirated software (pirated Windows 7 and Microsoft Office were available for a small fee). Do I have anything against using pirated software? No. Not really. But we went through all that when we built computers while living in Korea where pirated software is also very common. It worked fine for a while, and then we started getting all kids of messages from Microsoft about how they "thought" we "might" be using an unofficial copy and eventually it stopped working altogether. If we just stayed in Korea, it probably wouldn't have been a problem. We just would have stopped by our local computer software store and picked up a new copy of the pirated software and all would have been fine. But since we eventually had to return to the states, we decided it would just be easier in the long run to purchase a real copy of an operating system (at the time, Windows XP) and be done with it. Considering that same computer (built 8 years ago) is still my backup computer and sitting upstairs in my office right now, I consider it a good investment.
Regardless, no one seemed to understand why I would object to having a pirated copy of software. It's apparently just the way it's done here. They sell you essentially a blank computer, and you load whatever you want. And strangely, it you go to the Toshiba-Asia website, they even show that each model of computer can be purchased without software if you so desire. I was starting to be concerned that buying a new laptop would not actually solve any of our problems.
But then, I remembered that I was still carrying around the hard drive from my old computer (which worked just fine) because I needed to pick up my computer from the repair shop as we were not getting it fixed. Once I produced this hard drive that had an authentic copy of Windows 7 on it, there was much excited discussion after which they told me that "of course" they could just copy the operating system from my old hard drive and put it on my new one.
So, then the guy from the store walked me downstairs to another store (this one appeared to actually be a Toshiba outlet of some sort) and left me there telling me to call him when I was ready to go. The Toshiba people loaded the drivers I needed onto the laptop, but essentially just left my old hard drive in my new laptop rather than copying anything. I guess it's a long and involved process (kind of like buying a computer?) and as I'd already been wandering around the computer mall for over 2 hours, I was ready to just let it go. He told me to come back another day if I wanted them to transfer everything to the new hard drive and then the new laptop would be much faster since my old hard drive is over half full.
As business over here is all about relationships, I have no doubt that I could walk in some time next week and they would remember me and know why I was there. So, after 3 hours, I left the computer market with a brand new laptop with my old hard drive and the promise of maybe having something more. At least we have what we need to make it through the next few weeks.
If I was in the US, I could have a better laptop fully loaded with software (and an operating system...) for less than I paid, but considering where I live, and considering that USPS still has their lithium battery shipping issue, I'll be happy enough with our outcome.
Monday, October 1, 2012
A Schedule Emerges
Now that school has been in full swing for over a month, we have developed a definite pattern to our life - in a good way. B has made some friends and enjoys a fairly active social life. K has been out with Suchona quite a bit recently delving into the ayah-run play group world. I've gotten out a bit myself and find that I now have people I can hang out with as well. It's only taken... well... 7 1/2 months. Every place I go, I learn something new. Here, I have learned that I just need to jump in and get involved. It's funny, because I thought I learned that lesson when we lived in California, but apparently it didn't stick and I needed to learn it all over again here.
But all of this is good. I'm feeling very happy with our lifestyle here. My classes are going relatively well - halfway through the semester already and only 4 more big homework projects to go. Josh has been super-busy since his return from India. We haven't really seen all that much of him at all. Many nights, he makes it home just in time to go to sleep and then heads back to school first thing in the morning. The current exercise will end soon though (this week!) and then I think he'll actually be on a normal schedule for a whole week :) It would be really nice if he didn't actually have to work this weekend, but we'll see.
I purchased tickets for the upcoming Marine Corps Ball yesterday, and I have to admit to being really excited to get all dressed up (western style) for a fun evening. Josh will actually get a chance to wear his mess dress for the first time (making the cost per wear still fairly high...) and I've got a dress on its way from eBay as we speak. Online shopping really takes on a whole new life over here. Everything has to be planned out weeks in advance to deal with shipping delays. I've already started our Christmas shopping just because I know it will take forever for the packages to get here, and I need to have time to figure out what I've got and what I still need to get. Good thing Josh and I have generally favored a "less is more" approach for Christmas so the kids won't be expecting to find a room full of presents...
Well, that's about it from here. The protests have almost completely died down (thankfully) and the weather is really starting to be beautiful outside. It's funny because we spent over a year in Monterey - which is admittedly a beautiful place - and got used to cloudy, cool weather year round. Now, here we are wearing pants in 90 degree heat every day. But there's really something beautiful about this place. And can I even begin to mention how nice it is to live near the Equator and not have to worry about daylights savings time??? It's so refreshing that when I get out of bed, the sun is up. Year round. I could absolutely get used to that.
But all of this is good. I'm feeling very happy with our lifestyle here. My classes are going relatively well - halfway through the semester already and only 4 more big homework projects to go. Josh has been super-busy since his return from India. We haven't really seen all that much of him at all. Many nights, he makes it home just in time to go to sleep and then heads back to school first thing in the morning. The current exercise will end soon though (this week!) and then I think he'll actually be on a normal schedule for a whole week :) It would be really nice if he didn't actually have to work this weekend, but we'll see.
I purchased tickets for the upcoming Marine Corps Ball yesterday, and I have to admit to being really excited to get all dressed up (western style) for a fun evening. Josh will actually get a chance to wear his mess dress for the first time (making the cost per wear still fairly high...) and I've got a dress on its way from eBay as we speak. Online shopping really takes on a whole new life over here. Everything has to be planned out weeks in advance to deal with shipping delays. I've already started our Christmas shopping just because I know it will take forever for the packages to get here, and I need to have time to figure out what I've got and what I still need to get. Good thing Josh and I have generally favored a "less is more" approach for Christmas so the kids won't be expecting to find a room full of presents...
Well, that's about it from here. The protests have almost completely died down (thankfully) and the weather is really starting to be beautiful outside. It's funny because we spent over a year in Monterey - which is admittedly a beautiful place - and got used to cloudy, cool weather year round. Now, here we are wearing pants in 90 degree heat every day. But there's really something beautiful about this place. And can I even begin to mention how nice it is to live near the Equator and not have to worry about daylights savings time??? It's so refreshing that when I get out of bed, the sun is up. Year round. I could absolutely get used to that.
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