For the last two weeks, it has felt like time is moving more quickly by the day towards our upcoming PCS. An international move requires an annoying blend of small detail management and big picture perspective, all of which eats up extra time and energy you don’t have while working full-time.
During the final stages of our 2013 wedding planning, I would often awake from nightmares of walls covered with clocks, their hands spinning clockwise out of sync and with absurd rapidity. I don’t think I could ever care as much about a PCS as I did our wedding, nor do I think the stresses are equivalent.
But my strategy of trying to keep on top of a myriad of details — lest they pile up and overwhelm me later — generally serves me well.
The issuance of our Burmese visas in week 40 mostly overcame the growing dread I felt this past February. Four months ago, I was afraid we either wouldn’t go to Burma, or one (or both) of us might lose our federal employment. I guess that’s still possible, but I finally received orders in week 41 that made our move to Burma feel at least a little more secure.
Getting orders also unlocked the possibility of confirming my tentatively scheduled packouts. We have a tight window in July to get packed out before we have to travel to Burma. First I will undergo my end of training test for Burmese, and then we both have to attend an out-of-town security-related training (FACT). There is only one business day in between Burmese and FACT.
Then once FACT ends, we will have zero business days until our packout — only a weekend. After that ends (hopefully by day three), I will need to take my car to the west coast and drop it off with my dad as quickly as possible, in essence driving the first part of my PCS route.
Therefore, in a crowded transfer season with many officers vying for limited packout dates, I prioritized locking down our packout first.
The packout
Technically, we’ll have two packouts, each handled by a different company. The first packout will cover our UAB, HHE, and consumables, while the second will handle everything going into storage. Each packout will take about 1.5 to 2 days, with some overlap in the middle.
Planning a packout
Now that we’re about a month from our packouts, it’s time to start mentally dividing our possessions into categories.
The most immediate category will be the things we fly with. Two suitcases and two carry-ons each. Jewelry, some work clothes, initial toiletries, all our civil documents, three months of medication, our laptops and electronics, and our cat. And of course, however many purses I can take! During our packouts, we must secure these items in an empty room with a “Do Not Pack” sign on the door.
(Side note: PCS guidance often says to bring your first “several months” of needed items in your suitcase. This goes double when headed to countries with a limited market and long transit times for your diplomatic shipments. But such advice always makes me feel slightly like stabbing someone. There is no way on earth I can fit several months of things I need into 100 lbs of checked baggage. But I digress.)
Next we will get 450 lbs of air freight, called unaccompanied air baggage, or UAB. Our UAB will take approximately four weeks to arrive in Burma. For us, this will be kitchen appliances, bathroom rugs and trash cans, extra clothes and shoes, and a round of toiletries. We will add as many things as we can to this category until we max it out, while also understanding this shipment can get more roughed up than the others. UAB flies standby on commercial flights, so it isn’t suitable for easily breakable items.
Next, we get 1,250 lbs of consumables. Consumables mean things you “use up” versus “wear out.” We will put things that are expensive or impossible to get in Burma, or hard to order via Amazon. Some things on our list include wine, beer, toilet paper, olive oil, maple syrup, high protein waffle mix, soups, baking supplies, dried herbs and spices, canned pumpkin, Parmesan, yeast, canned goods, salad dressings, treats from Trader Joe’s, etc.
We aren’t likely to use up our whole consumables allowance. Let’s face it, we don’t need to recreate the United States everywhere we go. And we’re looking forward to trying new foods in Burma.
But particularly while in a hardship posting, having goodies from home can go a long way in boosting one’s morale. Our consumables shipment may take four months to arrive, so if we’re lucky, by Thanksgiving. The goal is to not buy more than eight months of foodstuffs because a one-year tour will pass quickly.
After that we have HHE, or a household effects shipment. HHE comes by sea freight and also will take around four months to arrive in Burma. We are allowed 7,200 lbs, which would be the bulk of our things except heavy furniture.
However, because of the slow transit, short tour, and difficult security situation in Burma, we don’t plan to actually bring much HHE. Not to mention the expense of international property insurance associated with transit and maintenance of your possessions in a war zone.
The art, home and holiday decor, garage stuff, mattresses, camping equipment, and personal sentimental items we would normally tuck into a safe HHE shipment will this time be put into storage instead. Better that than undergoing an evacuation and having to leave them all behind.
So HHE will comprise what we want to bring that doesn’t fit in suitcases or UAB, and isn’t appropriate for consumables. I’m thinking a small amount of winter clothes, maybe our picnic basket — things like that.
Which brings me to the storage packout. Essentially this will be the largest and heaviest packout. Storage will include everything that’s left over after the other shipments are packed. So it will be important in the coming weeks to assess which items we are keeping versus giving away or selling. And among what we are keeping, are we bringing it to Burma and how quickly will we need it.
I usually buy different colors of Post-it notes and start physically labeling things about three weeks before a packout. That helps V and I get on the same page and triggers different actions for us to complete that we otherwise would not have noticed.
Finally, among the items going to storage, we will further divide things into two categories. We have to plan for my assignment after Burma, even though I won’t bid until later this year. So one storage inventory will be all the heavy furniture we would not want in a future HHE shipment because it would put us over 7,200 lbs and because overseas housing is already furnished.
The second storage inventory would be everything else that — in theory — we would be glad to see appear at an overseas location TBD in 2026. The furniture on the first inventory would remain in permanent storage, likely until I retire or took another domestic assignment.
That’s the burden (?) of buying a house full of nice furniture when we came back from Mexico in early 2022; now I don’t want to let it go.
Fortunately, the total allowance of everything you can have and/or ship (including storage and vehicles) is 18,000 lbs, so as long as we organize our storage carefully so we don’t end up shipping heavy furniture to a post where it isn’t needed next year, we shouldn’t go over. My vehicles won’t put us over: I’m selling my 2010 VW and I’m turning my 2024 VW over to my dad for safekeeping while we’re in Burma. So their weight won’t count at all.
Working through my to-do list
Orders and visas also meant we were recently assigned a mailbox at the embassy. It was exciting to find out our future address and share it with family! I pulled out my address change Excel spreadsheet from when we departed Juárez and queued up that task for next month. I also made myself a note to put in a USPS Change of Address request, change our voter registration, and order and ship new address labels ahead to myself in Burma.
Next I contacted my gym and cancelled my membership as of the end of July.
Then I got in touch with our newly-assigned social sponsor in Burma to set up a call.
And finally, I did something very important, which was to identify a solution for the purses I cannot bring to Burma. Over the last five years, I’ve managed to collect a large volume of valuable vintage handbags. They are too precious for me to feel comfortable putting into a shipment, and too bulky to carry all of them on an airplane.
I’m happy to say I found a good climate-controlled private storage solution, since I’m not willing to use government storage. I know the government offers FSOs special storage options for documented high-value items, but I’m just not comfortable with that. I’m also not willing to leave them with anyone else, which really only left two options: bury them in the desert or go with private storage. I’d rather pay for it myself and keep everything under my own control—so I’m pleased with the solution I found.
In the next week or two, I also need to: buy plane tickets, organize some lodging for us between our packout and flights, get my older car appraised and list it for sale, figure out what to do with our cell phone plan, update our property insurance for transit, schedule an oil change for my new car, and buy a ton of things—from AirTags for the shipments to a new cat carrier to a car cover—plus probably a dozen other things I’m forgetting.
In the meantime, I’m attending a slew of doctor appointments and work-related consultations outside of class time.
Did you notice I didn’t mention studying Burmese once, despite my end of training test coming up in about two weeks!? [Insert pained expression here.] Trying to juggle all this, honestly… just makes me want to go to bed for several weeks and not deal with any of it.
Whose idea was it to start this whole going-overseas machine up again?!
Onward… the good part is yet to come.
Collecting Postcards 