Iftars, Goodbyes, Anniversary, Packing, Shopping, Madness

Just when I thought that our lives cannot be anymore frenetic and exhausting, it happened. This is what is happening in our lives right about now:

1. Ramadan is back! I cannot believe that we managed to be here through another Ramadan – typically it is in August and since we already have been here for 2 years, it only makes sense to see it twice. Just for us, the special of the decade, Ramadan this year fell in July. And you should know by now, fasting during Ramadan ends every night with an Iftar, a typical meal of water, dates and sweets, followed by massive quantities of food in the houses of those blessed to be able to afford that. You’d think that fasting during Ramadan is a great opportunity for the pious rotund revelers to shed a pound or ten since they do not eat or drink a thing until sunset. Apparently, however, people struggle not to GAIN weight during this time of fast. As an obsessive dieter, I am painfully aware that any period of starvation will lead to a counterproductive stuffing of my face later on. Imagine then the hapless Western diplomat or guest, who has been eating pretty finely all day and then has to face the cornucopia of an Iftar dinner. If fasting people gain weight then, what’s left to us gluttons who do not fast? So, yes, my waistline shudders at the thought of Ramadan given the crazy amount of Iftar invitations we receive.
2. Add to this the many lovely goodbye parties, receptions and dinners our friends are hosting for us lately. Saying “no” is not an option as we want to see everyone before we leave. But after the 10^th party, especially if you keep seeing some of the same guests, it is starting to get a little awkward as we keep saying goodbye to them over and over again. I feel like people are secretly thinking, “Leave already, damn it!”
3. Then add to that our packing this past week. Even though the good people from the State Department pay for packers and movers who come and pack everything for you, including the Embassy furniture (yup, it happened, even though I had been warned about it and told the movers many times what NOT to pack – there was some unpacking today before they took all 128 boxes away), it is still exhausting as you prance about the house and realize that there are clothes/thing that you/your husband have not worn/used/remembered since your wedding and they probably need to go NOW. Naturally, it is a good question why they got packed to Bangladesh in the first time, but suffice it to say that I was not the one supervising our prior packout, so…At any rate, I got rid of a heap of old clothes this week, which makes me so darn happy. I am even giving up 4 pairs of shoes!!! Which, in truth, had to happen – you’d be curious to know that out of our 6 traveling suitcases, one is completely and solely filled with high heeled shoes. Yup, 20 kg of shoes. I am not saying that is ALL of my shoes. I am just saying that is all the shoes I am taking with me to Washington. The rest will travel directly to Rio de Janeiro to await me anxiously in the spring. I simply ran out of space.
4. I am also trying to complete all of the clothes that I am having tailored here. As you can imagine, tailors here are obscenely cheap and have helped me augment my already massive closet considerably. So, I am frantically trying to complete everything to be able to stuff it in my boxes as the suitcases are already full. Same goes for framing pictures, buying gifts, selecting mementos and the like. Naturally, it does not help when all the boxes are packed and sealed to receive a decorative anvil as a goodbye gift, which inevitably happens. So, a piece of advice for all my fellow Foreign Service packers out there – if you are packing a few days before you leave post, ask the movers to leave you a box for collateral damage. That would include the above-mentioned anvil, dresses late from the tailor, two precious wooden kitchen spoons which Son apparently has been playing with somewhat unusually quietly in the most remote room of the house while the movers were around, a favorite glass Tupperware, which has been lying around the back of the fridge with something unidentifiable in it for what appears to be several months, and other similar domestic treasures. Then ask the moving company to pick the box up the day before you leave.
5. And amidst the madness, the Diplomat and I celebrated our 10^th wedding anniversary. Yup, it has been a while that have been doing this marriage thing. And it has been eventful, folks. We definitely were not bored all those years. Whether it was looking for jobs, scraping through law school, suffering through business school, facing layoffs, having a baby, traveling like mad people, buying or selling apartments, moving overseas and then some more, life together has been entertaining and never, ever boring. It does help that the Diplomat is rather easy on the eyes.

We have about 10 days left in this lovely land of Bangladesh, which translates itself into 24 more iftars, and 21 more goodbye dinners. It also means that I will definitely need an aisle seat on my way out of here as my behind will have expanded by probably 30 solid pounds by then. 

The Iftars and the truth about the UAB

Bangladesh and the rest of the Muslim world is in the midst of the holy month of the Ramadan, during which a huge majority of the Muslims keep a daily fast. That means that they do not eat after daybreak and before sunset. Which in turn means that they get up at about 4-4.30 am for a prayer, then a meal, then most likely go back to bed, wake up again, go to work and then break fast at about 6.30 pm. The break of that fast is called Iftar. Typically, the fast is broken by drinking water and eating few dates. And then a whole lot more.
As Iftar tends to be a communal thing, in the diplomatic community it has become the reason for many Iftar dinners involving our locally employed staff or other important people from Bangladesh and other diplomatic missions in Dhaka. They tend to be held in restaurants and the joke here is that this is the only party when the guests arrive on time and leave on time (since the fast is broken at about 6.30 pm, the guests arrive promptly by then, and then leave before 8 to attend the evening prayer). An Iftar party it goes something like this:

6.00-6.05 pm: Guests arrive and are promptly seated.
6.15-6.25 pm: Small traditional Iftar plate is placed in front of every person with dates, jelapis (twisted sweets made of pure sugar and flour, HIGHLY addictive), some fritters, along with a glass of water a lemonade. Why lemonade, no one can explain to me.
Almost no conversation is audible - if you have fasted all day, your appetite for small talk about the weather and the Dhaka traffic is understandably rather small.
6.30ish--the waiters announce sunset and Iftar can begin. I continue to be amazed at the grace and dignity with which Muslims break their fast given that they have not eaten the entire day. The food that follows is absolutely delicious!

And now I move to a topic that is VERY near and dear to every member of the US Foreign Service - our luggage shipments--and in particular to the sub-topic of the UAB. UAB stands for Unaccompanied Air Baggage and for the uninitiated it means a small part of your precious belongings that gets shipped to post via air (as opposed to an actual ship) and thusly, is supposed to arrive there a mere 2 weeks after the officer arrives. A single officer is allowed a mere 450 lbs of UAB, a couple - 600 and then add 150 for every additional member of household. What to pack in your UAB has turned into an art form and seasoned diplomats refuse to share wisdom. So, I have decided to share my mistakes with the hope to help some poor packing soul out there.

What to do:
1. Since in most cases, the movers will pack both the UAB and the rest of the luggage on the same day, segregate the UAB in the middle of a room. 900 lbs, which is the limit for a 4-person family, is not too much and not too little.
2. Make sure the person who cares the most what gets packed is there to supervise. I wasn't, and the Diplomat did what every other man would upon discovering that I did not select enough important things for the UAB--he packed his 75 lb bycicle. Apparently, that was much more imperative to have in Dhaka ASAP than, say, a couple of pots and pans, towels or sheets. To be fair, he also included all of my shoes in the UAB because, he said, he figured I would want them there. Yes, thank you.
3. This is what you should pack (since it will not be in your welcome packet at post, or there will be too little of it or the quality would be horrendous):
--towels for everyone
--sheets for everyone
--pillows
--blankets
--hangers (as many as you think you'd need)
--bathroom curtains
--bathroom mats
--soap dispensers
--soap
--alarm clock
--shoe rack
--tupperware
--table cloth
--cups
--cutlery
--plates (the UAB is not the best packed luggage so you might opt for some plastic one until the big luggage arrives)
--pots and pans, bakeware (oddly, there is none of that BUT there are a bunch of measuring spoons...)
--KNIVES!!!
--food processor
--your fav spices (try finding oregano in South Asia)
--your fav coffee machine
--cutting board
--hampers (you'll thank me for that one!)
--high chair for kids (or booster)
--diapers (pretty damn expensive anywhere you go)
--cleaning supplies and trash cans, trash bags
--if you have a cat, ship the litter box ahead of time (order it on Amazon and ship to post); include some sand, will arrive in 2 weeks tops
--books to read
--wireless router
--toys for the kids, if you have kids
--important files
--pills
--basic office supplies (stapler, glue, paper, pens, scissors)
Do not pack clothes in the UAB--use your 2 suitcase allowance for that. I think the State Department will actually pay for one extra suitcase so don't waste your precious UAB on that.

If you still have space left, fill it up with things like shampoo, nail polish, favorite foodstuffs and other edible non perishables (I cannot live without my Costco green tea, so I packed a box, along with a massive bag of Splenda, which costs here more or less the same as gold). The reality is that in most countries around the world you'll find almost anything that you want but it will cost you a pretty penny. Especially in the Embassy Commissaries.

4. What you will find in your housing besides furniture:
--a set of 4 plates/bowls/small plates/plastic glasses/cups
--a set of 6 of each silverware
--couple of pots and a pan
--plastic bowls for cooking/with lids
--horrendous knives
--cheep peeler, unusable can opener, etc.
--drying rack
--a set of plastic cooking utensils
--two kitchen towels
--ironing board and iron (good one!)
--vacuum
--in Dhaka, we get a bunch of fancy dehumidifiers and air purifiers
--phones
--really bad blankets and pillows (one per person)
--bedsheets
--one towel per person
--TV, DVD and CD
This is it. At least on our level. Who knows, maybe for higher ranked diplomats they throw in a second pillow and one more plate per person. All I will say is that during the first two weeks of your new life you'll be so busy trying to figure out silly details like checking in at work, remembering 59 names per day (most of them foreign), trying to hire domestic help, buy a car, register for one million things like school and the American Club, that you'll barely have to time to go out and buy necessities like salt and bread and trash cans. The thought of some familiar conveniences arriving within 2 weeks is very comforting, EVEN if those include a folding bike and 38 pairs of shoes.
So plan your UAB carefully and with some foresight--it will matter way more than you thought, especially since the rest of your luggage will most likely arrive no earlier than 2 months later.

PS - per FAQ, sadly, you cannot send your UAB earlier so that it arrives faster. It will leave the country only AFTER you land at post.

The UAB is here!

I am happy to report that the precious 600 lbs of craptastic domestic goods I was so eagerly expecting is finally here. It took ONLY 2.5 weeks to get it from NYC to Arlington, VA. I suspect they were pushing it along the highway on tiny trolleys. All seems to be well, except for one box whether a massive bag of powdered sugar had spilled, along with a box of Splenda (it is almost as if the two sugars were trying to outdo each other). Now, 1/3 of my possessions are covered with a fine film of sweet white dust. Fat Cat is beyond himself with excitement--he has spent the day wallowing and darting through the massive heaps of discarded brown packing paper.

To understand how the whole Foreign Service packing process works, I am going to share with you what fellow FSO wife wrote to me today: "Well the UAB is here, and even though the invoice said 5 boxes, and there were indeed 5 boxes, we are missing some of my shoes and our fan. Thank God they packed a trash can with trash included, I am sure we would have missed that very much." Yes, we FSO wives are a funny lot.

The bid list is ready and is a mixed bag of posts whose name no one has ever heard of and exotic locations that sound very cool on paper but apparently endure 6 months of nonstop rain or blistering heat. Either way, fun will be had. By some. We will know the results on August 27th.

Son has calmed down considerably. Drop off at daycare was quite good today and he threw only one notable tantrum the entire evening. He did proceed to eat a dinner of Wheat Thins (courtesy of the great parenting skills of the Diplomat) only. I can't blame him--only three nights ago I did precisely the same, with the added bonus of ginger ale. These things are viciously addictive.

In other rather underwhelming news, I have a work interview tomorrow for a legal temp agency. I realized that while I had packed in my limited allowance very useful clothes like my skiing jacket and a neat selection of flip-flops, I had forgotten to pack any work suits. So, at 5 pm today I made a mad dash for Macy's across the street--Macy's has everything and I always find what I need there. Until now, in NYC, at 34th street. Not in Ballston, VA. Here I found a startling selection of brown pant suits with red floral jackets, starting at size 14w, along with a series of austere black suits in petite, starting at size 18. At the verge of a nervoius breakdown, I found a lonely Calvin Klein suit rack, where I managed to get a skirt in my size, but the smallest jacket was two sizes larger. Due to is impeccable tailoring, however, and out of sheer desperation, I bought it only to be informed by the sullen, indifferent sales person that the suit goes on sale tomorrow at noon. My interview is at 11 am. I did ask if I can get the discount if I show up then(some stores have that policy), but she looked at me as if I had bunnies jumping out of my hair and gave me a firm and disgusted "No." So, at any rate, cross your fingers. For the interview, not the discount. Well, for the discount too, I guess!