Our Soggy Shipment

August 24, 2007

“Our Soggy Shipment”

This week has been very “challenging.” We have had lots of repairment/delivery people/installers show up, frequently at the same time, frequently with none of them speaking English. Most here speak Tamil, so in an emergency, I’ll have to call Farid’s secretary or our driver (if he happens to be here) and ask them to get on phone or come in and explain our conversation. Most workers tend to work late afternoon so all this week starting around 4 pm they start showing up. Sometimes I don’t even know what they’re here for, but the security guard will usually be able to tell me what they are doing or the name of the company. For example, two guys showed up for the intercom system and kept asking “Where?” After walking around like the three stooges, unable to communicate, I called Farid’s secretary who told me they were there to install the intercom system and I should show them what 3 places I wanted them located---which I did. They got that but kept asking about “BOX?” Another call and I find out, they also need to know where to install the main receiver box for system. Okay, great! But they keep looking around the house and I am clueless what they need. They ask for phone and I hand them my cell phone. No, that’s not what they want. Another call to secretary. At last we realize we can’t even get the intercom system yet, because we don’t have a land line phone yet!!! Only 30 minutes to figure that all out!

Our worst day so far has been receiving our air shipment. I was so excited to finally get it here. But, par for the course, the generator and the back up generator were not working and the heat in the house was sweltering. As they carried the boxes in, I told them where they needed to go and then they asked if I wanted them to unpack boxes. I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to deal with another 2 hours of this in the heat, and they all quickly said, “Okay no unpack!” and jumped in the truck. I signed for the shipment, writing a note that all boxes had not been opened yet to make sure I could claim damages if something was discovered to be damaged. They leave and about an hour later, I decide I’ll open up a couple of boxes. The first box was so wet, it just came apart in my hands when I tried to take tape off. I panicked. I start opening every box and checking. Many boxes were wet inside the box. Many contained electronic equipment . So far, anything we’ve plugged in, does not work---including Zach’s digital drum set. He was ready to come home that night! About 10 of our family portraits were wet, I peeled them carefully off the glass and dried them, but they are damaged. Some of the frames were so waterlogged, the wood was splitting apart. Two of my scrapbooks were ruined. About 20 pages will have to be redone. I tried to salvage as many of the pictures as I could and set them out to dry. Farid’s large expensive Persian carpet he had brought from Iran was totally soaked and mildewed. All the colors ran and it’s ruined. Our printer/scanner was wet. We don’t know about computer yet. In addition, there are several items we didn’t receive at all. Some boxes had been opened and retaped. The moving company was very apologetic and the company here in India told Farid they had tried to their best to dry things off and that they had received it wet from Italy, but if that was the case, why wouldn’t they tell us that upfront when they delivered it. The delivery guys here were too anxious to get out of here and we think they probably left some boxes sitting out and they got wet. We had a lot of rain they day before. So I’ve been busy sorting, cleaning, and taking pictures of all the damaged items and trying to remember what all didn’t show up at all. We should get reimbursed for the damaged items but at this point, I would have much rather not had to deal with this hassle!!!

Well, I’ll go back to sorting. I hope next week will be BORING!

Love and miss you all,
Donna