Moving Day

On Tuesday we moved from our temporary housing to our permanent home. It's a two story house with 3 bedrooms, an office and a guest room for visitors! As we are still getting settled, we don't have real pictures to show off, but we do have some from moving day.

We thought you might enjoy a timeline of this slightly crazy day, so here it is:

8.15AM-We meet our tuktuk driver at our temporary apartment and pile in with a few random bags of stuff.

8.20AM-We stop by our director's house to pick up her housekeeper. With two small children our director couldn't help us with cleaning and moving, but she generously donated her housekeeper for a few hours to help us with cleaning.

8.30AM-We go upstairs to Becki's room and pray for a few minutes to help focus before the busyness of the day sets in.

9.00AM-Becki and one of our Khmer teammates set out to the market in a tuk tuk. Rachel and Kimberly start sorting the piles of stuff that had been bought for the moving day.

9.30AM-Becki and company arrive at the market and begin bargaining for curtain fabric and other household items.

10.00AM-The water delivery people finally show up with 5 giant bottles of water for our house after being lost in our neighborhood for 30 minutes. Rachel stood out in the road and eventually waved them down.

11.00AM-One of our teammates arrives to help us with the chaos!

11.15AM-Becki meets another one of our teammates at the tailor to start the process of making curtains.

12.00 noon-Kimberly and Rachel start unpacking the boxes that had been shipped from China. It was like Christmas again finding all of our treasures that we said goodbye to in June.

12.15PM-Becki shows up with her treasures and some take-out for lunch so we eat our first lunch in our new house in the living room! We rest and regroup for a little while.

1.15PM-Yet another one of our teammates shows up to help us. We tackle moving some misc. unwanted things (left from our landlord) to storage.

1.30PM-Several of our Hard Places Khmer staff show up to help with the real moving part of moving day. Kimberly, two of the guys, and our tuktuk driver go back to our temporary housing to get our stuff.

1.30PM-Becki and our teammate start painting some furniture outside.

2.15PM-The tuk tuk comes back with all of our luggage and looks like this:

Yes, this is all of our personal belongings that we brought with us to Cambodia three weeks ago. We each have two suitcases, a purse and a carry on and they all fit on one tuk tuk.

Plus pillows and other random bags and still both guys plus the driver were able to fit!

2.30PM-Kimberly is busy trying to figure out what pieces of furniture we want from the second hand shop that was in the ground floor of our temporary housing. Rachel and Becki are busy at the house taking the suitcases to the various rooms.

2.45PM-The second load comes back looking like this:

There was three people, three shelves, two mattresses, one desk and one driver all in one tuk tuk!

3.00PM-Everyone sits down and enjoys a nice cold soft drink after all the moving.

3.15PM-Rachel heads out to get a PO Box from the post office, arriving 30 minutes later. She finds the right window after going to four wrong windows and begins filling out the necessary paperwork. Meanwhile, Becki and Kimberly are busy cleaning the kitchen and finding a home for everything.

4.15PM-Rachel finally secures a key and pays $13 for a whole year. She just happens to bring a treat of cupcakes home from a local bakery.

5.00PM-Becki and Kimberly head out for an adventure procuring furniture while Rachel stays at home hoping beyond hope that the internet people actually show up (we started calling them around 10am - when they were first suppose to show up).

5.30PM-The internet people do show up--all five of them! They climb up our front gate to install some cords and then wait around for a while to see if a signal is available.

5.45PM-Becki and Kimberly find some furniture for various rooms.

6.30PM-The internet people come in and begin installing the router upstairs.

6.35PM-The delivery guys arrive with some furniture that Kimberly and Becki sent back to the house.

6.45PM-Becki and Kimberly stop by the market and pick up yummy fried rice and fruit.

7.15PM-We eat our first dinner at home and debrief our day.

8.15PM-More cleaning and unpacking ensues. The goal for the end of the night is to have the main rooms of the house clutter-free. The office and guest room piles continue to grow.

8.30PM-The internet people finally get everything in order and we are online three hours after the initial process started.

9.00PM-The goal for the day is met and there is much celebrating!

We hope to have the house in order this weekend so we can take pictures and post them soon.