A Moving Time

The week leading up to moving out of our house of three and a half years into the OMF Team Centre was a difficult one, although in truth nearly everything went to plan. Much of our furniture was part of the OMF Cambodia furniture pool - loaned out to us while we were in country, to be returned as we leave for use by others or stored 'til needed. In addition, over our eight years, we have accumulated some additional furniture, particularly to provide an extra lounge area for our teenage children, and also bookcases to hold our accumulation of books. We advertised around the team, as well as asking people individually, to look after our personal furniture. That worked well, as several new families were delighted to use our furniture for a year - acting like we were doing them a favour - whereas from our point of view, in looking after it for a year - they were doing us a favour. Some furniture left in a friends' car on Mon 5 July, and then we sent a whole lorry load to different friends on Tue 6. We had booked 'the man with the van' - a local Cambodian remover - to take stuff to three locations, and he brought three removal men with him. Then the negotiations started!

One family to whom the largest load was going - and who lived in a difficult to find house - had agreed to lead the lorry there, and so I had expected we would go there first. Instead, the removers insisted this would be the last of the three places, and our friends would have to drive their car with us to the other two places first. Our first stop was fairly uneventful, but the second was to a colleague who lives down a very narrow alley, difficult to spot except from one end. Our driver, however, was keen to avoid the police - a heavily loaded removal lorry like ours was subject to spot 'fines' of US $1.25 if seen by the police. By keeping a sharp eye out, and making U turns at a moment's notice, we avoided all but one such contribution to the police - made by one of the men jumping off the moving lorry, handing over the money, and jumping back on - a mode designed to minimise any possible inflation in the contribution that might arise if we actually stopped. Anyway, as we lurched around the streets, Shirley tried to spot the alley as our direction became increasingly confused, whilst I spoke to our colleague on my handphone trying to obtain a few additional crumbs of guidance. In the end, somehow we found the unmarked alley, only to spot that it was completey blocked by a wedding marquee - fortunately just beyond the house we were dropping furniture at! We 'phoned our friends, who had lost us in our efforts to avoid the police, and reunited, we made our way uneventfully to their house to drop the last load.

Needless to say, the ongoing thinning and packing of our stuff, and the cleaning of the house - by our househelper, plus one loaned by a friend who was on holiday - kept us hot and busy to the last day on Fri 9. OMF had booked the same removal guy for us, and this time one and a half lorry loads were needed to take the OMF pool furniture and our stuff packed into metal runks for storage. Metal trunks are used to avoid water damage - always a risk in Cambodian houses - and also as rats can easily eat there way into cardboard boxes. Talking of rats, our cats, Pepper and Sooty, also had to be rehoused. Pepper was taken by the colleague in the difficult to find alley above, and she has posted the tale on her own blog; Sooty went to another family, and I may tell that tale here another time.

The photos above and below show the lorry load of pool furniture leaving our house, and a photo of the OMF Team Centre where we finished up our last week in Cambodia before our flight on Sat 17 July.