And the moving begins!

We tried not to get stressed out or obsessive about the move, but… it was a ton of emotions and work for about 6 weeks of May, June and July.

Well, we started sorting through things about a week before the compound’s garage sale.  Then we sorted and sorted and made piles, and finally, organized and labeled. There was so much stuff in our garage sale that we made $1200.  Not that many big items, either!

Eben working on sorting markers and colored pencils

this was the garage AFTER the sale

Once the garage sale was done, we had the assessment by the moving company and then we sold more things online.  That was when we sadly said good bye to our big Javanese bed L

Then we did had air and sea freight packouts.  The crew was great!  The proof won’t be until we see all of our stuff intact in Kinshasa, but they were communicative and efficient, and seemed to be taking good care of our stuff.  Zeric’s Vespa got its own crate for the trip! 

 

 

taking a break from sorting

 

someone is using the boxes to conceal their sneaky ipad time

 Once that was over, we started planning our consumables shipment (from the US to Kinshasa).  And sold our car and bought a car (yipppeeeeeee – a 4Runner!) from people who were leaving DRC.   And organized to get the dogs shipped from Jakarta to Kinshasa via Paris. 

It was a crazy month of June!!

Closing down your house is a tough process, and we were often sad to see things go.. but the kids did great making choices, and we all pitched in to make it happen.  We tried to focus on all of the good times that we had, the friends we will stay in touch with, and the adventure that lies ahead.