Developing Your Professional Bag-Packer Skills
Sometimes I feel like all I do is pack and unpack bags. It is kind of a joke in my bio that I am a “professional packer of bags,” but it is also very true. I bet you have also felt like a professional packer of bags at times during your expat journey of traveling and moving across all kinds of borders. I bet you have spent a few weeks just shopping, sorting, organizing and packing those bags to head back to your host country. This doesn’t even include the weeks spent making lists upon lists of all the supplies you will need for the next six months—and for some of you, six years—to survive away from your passport country.
So, let’s talk packing. I think we are the only people in the world that actually know the accomplishment it takes to pack twelve bags for Africa, or six for Southeast Asia, or to pare down the most important things into two bags because you don’t want to pay for extra baggage. Packing is really on my mind right now, because in the last six months I have sold most of my possessions and packed the remaining items of my life into eight fifty-pound bags, two carry-on bags, and one pet-carrier for my dog, to move from Ethiopia to America. Then we packed up our mobile-bus-home for a cross country road trip. Now I am packing bags to move to Uganda. For this move we are taking a total of five bags and the dog back with us to Africa. We actually packed our bags outside because there was no room in our mobile home to lay out that many bags.
Here are seven packing considerations to think about as you develop your bag packing career.
How Long Are We Going to Be There?
I am not sure about y’all, but there is always a lot of uncertainty about how long we will live in each place (this is the life of an entrepreneurial family in Africa I guess). When I was single and living in Malawi, I always thought it would just be a few more months. Because I thought I wouldn’t be there for long, I only brought clothes with me. I lived in a furnished house and ate almost every meal out or ordered take away. I did that for three years! When we moved to Ethiopia, I decided that I didn’t like the idea of not truly settling in. When we moved to Ethiopia, I decided that I was going to invest in this country and act like I was going to be here for a while. Eventually, we brought almost everything we owned over to Ethiopia, except for three boxes of old journals and photo albums in my parents’ barn attic. About the time we brought a rocking chair from Ikea and built a lot of baby furniture we decided to move. I was like, “What? I have all this stuff!” Now we are moving to Uganda, the question is still the same: “How long are we going to be there?” We have absolutely no idea, but we are taking the dog, so hopefully we will be there a while. All the uncertainty does make it hard to know what to bring and what our mentality should be with this move.
Oregon Trail Mentality
Growing up I was addicted to the Oregon Trail game, but I was homeschooled and only allowed one hour of screen time a year and I didn’t get to play it much to say the least. In the game, I loved the preparation for the adventure and hardships along the way. I have said to my husband a number of times as we prioritize what to take with us to our host country, that I feel like I am living my best “Oregon Trail Life”. When you go on the Oregon Trail you have to prepare for the worst, but you can’t take everything with you. The people that set out on the Oregon Trail were moving their lives to the western part of the United States, but they couldn’t take everything with them. In the case of the expat life, you too are moving your whole life to the other side of the world and you have to prioritize what is most important for survival—and “survival” looks different for all of us.
Will I Rebuy This?
When I am packing something to move from here-to-there and yonder, my main question is, “If I don’t bring this, will I need to buy a new one?” If the answer is “yes,” then that item is probably on the to-pack list. If the answer is “no,” then I definitely don’t take it with me.
Less Is More
Less really is more. Living overseas helped me to see how little we really need. But living in a tiny home for the last six months in my passport country while we were in transition really helped me to see exactly what we use. Everything in our tiny home really can fit into eight bags, because that is what we brought back from Ethiopia. I have a small selection of clothes for winter and another selection for summer. Having less stuff has been freeing because it is less work to figure out what to pack and it gives me hope moving to Uganda with very little.
Thrift Store Buys
When I was selling off our household in Ethiopia, I was so thankful for all the second-hand items I had brought over and was now selling as third-hand items. I would have been a lot sadder to be selling new items I bought in my passport country. But selling second-hand buys was no big deal. I paid a dollar for a spatula in my passport country at a thrift store, and I sold it for a dollar when I left Ethiopia.
Boundaries Are Good
What if there were no baggage limits on airplanes? That would be the best thing for me and the worst thing for my marriage. I can just picture us with twenty bags at the Atlanta airport (I am holding the baby and my husband is pushing five carts of bags). Baggage limits—plus the fact that I am cheap and don’t like to pay for extra bags—are a good boundary for having less clutter in my life and not driving my husband up a wall.
Know What You Can Buy in the Country That Will Be Hosting You
Uganda is so different from Ethiopia in a lot of ways, but there is a huge difference in what we will have access to in Uganda. This makes it much easier to move with five bags. In Ethiopia we imported cheese, sausage, bacon, frozen berries, not to mention a lot of household items. I made a trip to Uganda in February to gear up for our move and look for a house. My main objective, besides finding a place to live, was to make lists of things we needed to bring over. I was shocked at what I was able to find in the supermarkets. If you can’t visit the country before your move, try finding a Facebook group for expats in the country you are moving to and ask what is essential to import. There is no easy way to fit your life into a few bags.
When I am selling and consolidating I am always encouraged by what the Scriptures thinks about stuff,
“There’s one thing lacking. Sell everything you own and give it away to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me .” (Luke 18:22)
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