Consumable Weight Allowance

We are authorized a consumable shipment for this move to Djibouti. Consumables are any items that you will use up while you are residing at the assignment location and many remote locations are allotted this allowance. We are authorized one thousand pounds a year or so. You are not obligated to take consumables, this is a benefit.

The biggest plus in taking consumables with you is minimizing the cost associated with living in the new host country ~ because it isn’t as if you can’t find similar things there, you will just pay a lot more for them and sometimes the quality is inferior. The secondary plus is that when you host people at your home, they want, desire, like eating American food (I am basing this solely on my time in Ethiopia.). Third plus is that when you have a lot of house guests from the US come through; it makes their trip exponentially more comfortable as they are inevitably fighting off Montezuma’s revenge, when you have chicken noodle soup and Ritz butter crackers available. The last plus, is that it is also really nice to have comfort food and things familiar for the adjustment and general quality of life when abroad. During the holidays, it is also wonderful to be able to make the dishes that represent how you traditionally celebrate holidays.

When preparing for our move to Ethiopia, I chose what to take in our consumable allowance by essentially doubling the dry goods I bought at the grocery store for the last six months we were in the U.S. I felt like that system would allow me to cover all bases and for us to have a little bit of home with us. The American compound in Addis Ababa had a commissary so I was hopeful we would be able to supplement our consumable allowance with items from the commissary.

The difference between how I am planning for Djibouti vs. how I planned for Ethiopia is that we no longer have a toddler AND I sent baking goods like flour, sugar, chocolate chips in my consumable shipment to Ethiopia. I will not be sending those items with our household goods to Djibouti.

Friends and family across the world received the story about the Ethiopian move via e-mail that led to the reason that I will not be shipping baking supplies to Djibouti and while I no longer have a copy, I believe the subject line started as, “and then there were rats…”.

Simply told, when our household goods were delivered there were 12 adult and 2 baby rats living in our items. They were big, fat healthy rats because they had eaten through a fifty pound bag of sugar that had been packaged in a rubber maid container. They had also devoured any and everything that was soft enough for them to get their teeth through, food, clothing, rubber, really anything.

I can laugh about it now, but when it happened it wasn’t funny. At all. We had only been allotted a small amount of weight to ship and the rats had ruined half of our total household goods, because what they hadn’t eaten they had lived in, peed in, poo-ed in.

On that forever-etched-in-my-memory delivery day, Darling Husband was at a luncheon, enjoying himself immensely while I was at the house coping. The Ethiopian, who delivered the crates of our things, laughed and told me to claim it on my insurance. The guard working at my house stomped the rats to death as they ran out of the packages. I cried.

When I say they ate everything, we had taken our seven year olds bike, and the rats had eaten the seat. I had taken my cappuccino maker and the rats had eaten all of the rubber components. They had chewed holes through work uniforms and eaten little people toys in addition to devouring all of the consumables that were not in a can.

The frosting on the cake is that there had been a pick up glitch and our household goods had sat on the airport tarmac in Ethiopia, during the rain. So, what wasn’t consumed by the rats was wet and molding. Essentially the first two feet of every crate that we had packed was wet. And, crates had been open and we were missing some essential items, like the bottoms to every uniform that had been sent.

After that day Darling Husband carried my passport in his pocket for the next few weeks, afraid that I would just go home. The airport was not a too horribly unpleasant walk from our house.

So, for Djibouti, all that I am sending over in our household goods will be in cans or other less-permeable packaging. Things the rats can smell, like chocolate chips or brownie mix, I am just going to have mailed over as I need them or I will use Net-Grocer.

There are a number of ways to manage a consumable shipment. I have been picking up non-perishables for the last few months and stacking them on a shelf in our garage. Having now lived in a developing country without the benefit of a consumable shipment I have a better idea of what I think we need or what will make a difference.

Ethiopia had been occupied by the Italians and still has a substantial Italian ex-pat community so you could find almost any Italian ingredient you might desire. I am counting on the fact that Djibouti was a French colony as I make my consumable choices, to make it safe to not bring anything distinctly French ~ like mustard.

Later, I will share the list of what we are taking and why.