Katmandu living

the van de Wiel/Schou Hansen family blog


We have now finished the move and have now moved down to Theresa and David. It took the moving people two days to pack all our stuff and put it into the container. In the end we almost filled the 40 foot container so it was good that we took that option. I will now have to fill out the insurance papers and we will have to send all the documents to the moving company. According to the moving company all our stuff should arrive in Yemen in 45 days so it should be around the 15th of January next year before we see it again. Yesterday we first went down to see the new-born son of Marie-Clair and Erik-Jan. His name is Loek (I am not sure if I spell it right) and are only two weeks old. After that we had some of our other friends over for a goodbye dinner. To avoid to cook we had pizzas and all in all it was a nice night. We are now left with only 36 hours in Mexico before we have to be on the KLM flight to Holland were we will stay at Oma and Opa’s place for a few days. Lieke will fly down to Yemen on next Saturday whereas Joop, Liva and I will stay in Holland until the 7th of December after which we go to Denmark to stay at Farmor’s place. So all in all the stress will really not stop intil we are in the plane.

With not much to do, Liva and Joop are using the boxes to play hide and seek and we use much time on discussing what is in each box. Liva was at a friends place today and she seem to start to understand what is happening. Today she told her friend, Isabella, that we were going to move far away and that it might not be possible for her to visit us. Posted by Picasa

Here is a picture of Joop and Vivianna in front of that is left of our living room Posted by Picasa

Finally, we are now moving. The moving people are here right now though they are taking a lunch brake giving me time to answer a few mail and post these pictures on our blog. Right now one of Liva and Joop's toys keep on playing "London bridge is coming down" from one of the boxes - I wonder how long it will continue before the battery runs out! You have to keep an eye on the moving people all the time. Just before one of the younger ones tried to pack three balloons from Liva and Joop's party! Anyways, things are going fine - I just wanted to post these two pictures before they also pack down out computer! Posted by Picasa

Today Liva and Joop's kindergarten had a goodbye for Liva and Joop. We went over there and there was cake and gifts for the kids. We also got a picture of the all the kids from the two classes (see above). Today we also lost the car so we are now a bit stuck here in the house until we leave. Tomorrow we will start to pack the things and by Firday we will probably have lost the computer so it might be quite for a while. Anyway, I will try to post again when we are in Europe sometime next week. Posted by Picasa

Liva is off to the dentist today. We thought that we better make sure that all these kind of things were taken care off before we take off for Yemen. It was supposed to be the first dentist visit of both Liva and Joop but as Joop is still a bit under the weather because of her cold we have decided to only bring Liva. We have also decided that we will leave the last vaccination of Joop for until we are in Holland as she doesn’t need anymore hassles. Last night was a bit tough. Both Liva and Joop have a terrible cold and Lieke is also getting something. Now is not quite the time for this but I guess it can’t be helped. We are trying to clean up things before the moving people arrive on Thursday to pack everything. With that we are only left we a few more days in Mexico to take care of the rest. On Saturday we will move down to Theresa and David and will spend our last three nights in Mexico there. Strange to think that we will be sitting in the KLM plane on the way to Amsterdam in just over a weeks time

The new "sport" in our family is to put stickers in the face, so here is a picture of Joop and Liva that has been "stickerized" by Liva Posted by Picasa

We have now gotten our pictures back from our trip to "Tio Pepe's farm", the local petting zoo, so here is a picture of the girls together with a cow Posted by Picasa

Today we had the party for Joop and Liva. As Liva has kept on insisting that it was a party for her birthday both she and Joop got lots of presents (even though Liva's birthday is not until April) and just to keep up these appearances we had two birthday cakes - one with two candles and one with four. So with this party over, we can now fully concentrate on the organization of the move from Monday onwards. Posted by Picasa

With less than 2 weeks left in Mexico the stress level is rising. Lieke has now finally had her big event in Yucatan and has said goodbye to her counterparts there, and is now left with all the office work, the annual reporting etc. She will still be pretty busy but will at least be in Mexico City. We have now finally settled on a moving company that will ship our things to Yemen. We will get a 40 foot container that should get just over half full. Getting a quote on how much it will cost has been like pulling teeth. Between the Mexican MaƱana culture and the Yemeni Ramadan it seems like that the coordination between the Mexican company and their partners in Yemen has been very difficult. We however finally now have a quote and a moving company that has a faint idea about where in world Yemen is (you sail around Africa and keep to the right). The next two days will be used to coordinate the goodbye party for kids. As Joop will be cheated out of a birthday party for kindergarten, we felt that it would be best to have a party for all the kids in both Liva and Joop’s classes. So on Friday we will have 16 kids and their mothers coming over for lunch, which leaves all the shopping to be done tomorrow. After that we will have to get organized for the move. The movers will come on the 24th to 26th November, which leaves us with 3 days after that in Mexico without a house. On next Thursday we will have to give back the diplomatic number-plates for the car so we will have to do all the things for which we need a car within the next week. So all in all we are entering a very stressful period.

With so few weekends left before we take off to Europe and Yemen we feel that we have to use all the time we have here to do something for the kids. Lets not kid ourselves – though there will probably be plenty to see in Sana’a there will probably not have quite as many possibilities as here. This weekend we used most of Saturday to do something for the grown-ups though as we went out to eat lunch with Erica and Jakob (a Danish-American coupe that we have met here). We went to a restaurant in Polanco what we have been meaning to try out for quite some time and it was lovely – Spent 4 hours eating and discussing without the interruption of the kids. To make it up for Liva and Joop, we went to a petting zoo today. Both kids took a ride on horses and gave food to the cows etc. Afterwards we had a late lunch in a kids restaurant called the rainforest with mechanical elephants etc. All in all it was been a very nice weekend. Last week was supposed to have been very quite as it was interrupted by both Dia del Muerto and Eit. However, as Lieke has a million things to finish before we can take off to Europe she worked some of the time on both days. We however had time to meet up with Anneke and Jean-Michel, friends of ours that lived in Yemen before coming to Mexico. We of course discussed Yemen – By now it is strange because even though we have never been to Yemen it is like we know Sana’a by now. I look forward to see 60 meter road – Called so because it is supposed to be 60 meter wide as it doubles as an emergency landing strip for planes. I also look forward to see Hadda Road – a road where much of the expat life seems to revolve around as this is where you can do much of your shopping. Next week will be very busy. Lieke is off to both Chihuahua and Yucatan and will be out from Tuesday morning to Thursday evening. I will meet up with one of the moving companies to discuss our move and will have to start to clean up everything so it is ready to get packed.

Finally, we have managed to sell our car. After having an add in the papers 6 times in the last two weeks and having quite a few people looking at it (not as many as we would have liked but still) we ended up selling it to the same price as we were offered from the start. The good thing is, however, that we can have the car until a few days before we leave at the end of the month. It is going to be hard to say goodbye to it though – it has served us well for the last three and half years, having taken us to all corners of Mexico. If money was not an obstacle we would probably have taken it with us and given it to Joop when she turned 18 – It is after all not everyone who can say that she was born in a car in Mexico City. Tomorrow we will go to our local Delegacion to get Joop her first Mexican Passport. I know it is not a car, but it is at least proof that she was born on Avenida de la Reforma in D.F.

Tonight it is Halloween. I didn’t realize this until the kids of the neighbors rang the bell to get some candy. Unfortunately we didn’t have any candy so they had to leave empty-handed. We are lucky that we live on a closed street, as the rest of the neighborhood is a mess. Most people from the surrounding neighborhoods drive to here as this is where the money is and therefore also is where the best Halloween loot is (or so the belief seem to be – I think that people here are very selfish and am sure that the loot would be better in a middleclass neighborhood). So Liva, Joop and I just used almost an hour to take the drive back and forth to the supermarket – a trip that normally takes 10 minutes. The streets are filled with small monsters and witches. At the supermarket we of course bought some candy, just in case someone else will ring the bell later tonight.

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