A story of stuff

In the end it’s just stuff and we're doing great without it. But where the #(*&%#((@ is it?

The story of our sea shipment: packed up at the end of February, rail to NY, wait for a boat, cross the Atlantic and cruise down the coast of W. Africa and either stop at a port in SA or carry on to Tanzania where it could be set on a train or a truck to Zambia. A few weeks back we foolishly assumed that our stuff was waiting for a truck in Dar Es Salaam (photo, right) along the container of another Seattle family that moved here same time we did. Our two families joked about hiring a truck ourselves to get it over with already! Silly Jennings!

When TJ informed me that our stuff wasn’t in port in Tanzania I thought for sure that it was in Zambia! Yippee!

But no.

It was in port alright…at JEDDAH. If I had my atlas I’d look at it right now to figure out where exactly that is, but my atlas is in JEDDAH. Jeddah is, I’m told, a port on the Red Sea…Our container wasn’t in Tanzania, it is in SAUDI ARABIA! (photo, The Jeddah Islamic Port)

It will eventually cruise down the east coast of Africa, maneuvere through bands of marauding pirates along the Somali coast (I’m being dramatic, I doubt any pirate in

their right mind would bother with a container ship) and maybe stop in Dar, Tanzania…It might just keep going down, hit Mozambique, and eventually make its way to South Africa, maybe round the Cape and just keep going right up the West coast of Africa…it can say ‘Hello’ to Emily in Morocco, wave to everyone in Europe, YOO HOOO!!!! and then do a second run through the Suez Canal just for kicks! It’s like an extended IKEA furnishings vacation!. They haven’t seen enough of the world! They need a chance to see it all before it settles down at plot 24 Mwambula, Jesmondine, Lusaka.

At least now we can stop waiting for it. The ‘planned’ arrival day has come and gone. The stuff is in Jeddah.

Tomorrow we go atlas shopping.

(map below, The Jeddah Islamic Port, Saudi Arabia)