Our truck had been sitting in storage in San Diego since June, waiting for us to complete the demolition and re-construction of our little villa in Calafia. We were not really ready to bring it here, but time had run out - you have six months from the date your FM3 visa is issued, and mine was issued on Feb. 22. So on Aug. 22 my coach was due to turn back into a pumpkin, and the move had to be made, ready or not.

I've gotten used to living without stuff over the months since I arrived in April, but I didn't think I could live another six months without a chair to sit on or a table to eat at. I got used to the air bed, but have to confess that every night when I laid down on it I sighed with longing for a real mattress.  Besides, summer was almost over, and all my pretty linen pants and embroidered skirts, and fancy sandals were still on that truck! Now I had only two weeks to reconnect with it all.  I figured if I'd change clothes at least five times a day between now and Labor Day, everything would get worn for at least a few minutes. (Just kidding.  I had already adopted the national dress of Baja - flip flops, shorts and tee-shirts.)  Since I'm new to West Coast weather, I didn't know if everyone changes their wardrobe after Labor Day.  On the east coast, when you have a professional wardrobe, this can take an entire weekend to accomplish, as summer things go up into the attic or a closet, and warmer clothes reappear.

The process for a household move is to make a detailed list of every item in every box and every piece of furniture. This list is your “Menaje de Casa” and you had better get it all right. 

Just ONE mislabeled box that customs opens can lead to the entire truck being emptied and searched.  I had packed carefully, but I had not understood that customs does NOT want to see anything new on the truck. This is very important, but had somehow not registered with me.  I had purchased some things for the villa because I knew even last fall that I wanted a different kind of house from the one I left in VA. So there were boxes with new linens, pillows, tableware and lamps somewhere in the 26 feet jammed packed on our trailer.

When the mover heard this he told me to make a list of every box that might hold something with a price tag, then to pull out all those boxes, open them and remove the items. Because Mexican customs is concerned that people are going to bring in things to sell, they are very picky about electronics. Every electronic, and that includes not just TVs and DVDs, but also your paper shredder (Hey! I lived and worked in Washington, DC.) ice cream machine and kitchen mixer must be listed with its make, model and serial numbers. I had foolishly followed the directions on the web site of the Embassy in Washington, which told me that I just needed to list the item and its serial number. So my list said “Television #1, 12345678.  This won’t do it.  Our mover insisted we pull all that stuff off the truck, put it into the storage unit, and bring it separately later. That means we’re still entertaining ourselves with the 12" TV our neighbors lent me last April.  We are very grateful to have it but I swear, some phones have larger screens...

I'm embarrassed to say that our list had over 250 boxes, plus furniture.  I know now how ridiculous that was.  But, I had tried my best to eliminate stuff by giving or throwing it away.  We had a whole-house yard sale that didn't go very well.  I later learned you've got to advertise on Craig's List to get a good turn out.  I had a detailed list with a number for each box and the contents: #211:towels, 145: books and CDs, and so on.  But the mover told me to make a second, simpler list that would read " 250 boxes containing: books, linens, clothing, kitchen equipment..." and so on.  He said I should show that simpler list to the consular office and see if they would accept and approve it.  That way we wouldn't have to worry about having made a mistake with numbers and contents.  If they wouldn't accept it, I'd still have the detailed list for them. 

Our trailer is too big to bring into our development, so we had to transfer everything from our trailer to the mover’s smaller truck.  We started unloading the trailer and loading his truck at 8 am and finished at 1pm. The truck took off for the border.  We ran some errands (Read: got more cash from the bank), and headed off after it. We arrived first. Then we waited. And waited some more.  Try to imagine the customs loading dock in Tijuana: huge tractor trailers heading for cities all over Mexico stand idling in the August sun, heat rising in waves across the acres of asphalt, while gasoline and diesel fumes choke out what little oxygen your lungs gasp for.  Laborers in green shirts scurry back and forth unloading trucks for inspection – here a load of furniture, there an entire truck full of cardboard tubes for concrete molds.  Some very familiar names go by – Serta mattresses, McCormick spices, and Sara Lee cakes.  I was in the East Room of the White House in September, 1993 when President Clinton and former Presidents Bush and Carter spoke in favor of NAFTA.  Now here I am to see it actually at work.  I never expected that to happen. 

Our truck went through at 3 pm. We were praying for the green light, which, unsurprisingly, means "go ahead". But it seems they almost always stop trucks with household goods, so we got the red light. (Damn!) Then the truck had to wait in another line to get a place at the dock. It then has to be mostly unloaded for inspection. The mover had gone off and left his assistant with us.  He told us that the broker would have to be paid $150 to unload and reload the truck. This in a country where many laborers make $20 a day.  At this point I was so tired and stressed I probably would have paid it, just to get things moving, but Steve was getting tired of being jacked every time we turn around, so he told the mover we were NOT going to put any money in anyone's hands. If we had to pay any money, we were only going to pay it to the official cashier over at the official window, and only there. At this, Geraldo’s eyes got big and he stammered that he would go "see what I can do". When he returned, he said that he had some men who would unload and reload for...any guesses?  Anyone?  Thirty dollars! We paid $1400 to the mover and they still tried to get more out of us.

Two guys unloaded about half of the contents. Boxes and furniture lay out on the dock while we waited for an inspector. Eventually, a woman in her 30s came by, took a look, told them to open some boxes so she could check them and walked off. I was impressed that a woman had reached a position of authority in this very macho environment.  Good for her!

The men slit open some boxes, and we waited some more. The inspector returned and went to the first box (the FIRST box!) and pulled back the flaps. Inside was a silk lampshade with the price tag dangling from the edge.  Oh Lord, how did THAT happen?  I almost fainted. She looked up at me and I hustled over. "Is this new?" she asked. Unfortunately, one of my worst vices it that I’m a terrible liar. Really terrible. So, I looked her straight in the eyes and said, "No, it's not new". She looked puzzled and asked, "Then why is the price tag on it?" a perfectly reasonable question.  I replied, "We keep the tags on because we move them from room to room". Right now you’re scratching your head and saying "huh?" which is exactly the right response to my statement. It made no sense at all. The inspector looked baffled . Steve looked baffled. Even the moving guys looked baffled.  I felt stupid and embarrassed. But the inspector gave me a puzzled look and moved on to the next box. I guess she thought this was some inexplicable Gringa habit.

Next the inspector walked into the truck while we waited out on the dock. Because there are boxes packed to the ceiling, and they can't pull out the ones in the middle or on the bottom, they use a knife to cut into the sides of the boxes and pull down the cardboard flap to see what's inside. The inspector and her two assistants pulled down the flap on one of them and peered inside. Then she turned and gave me a very strange look. I thought, "Oh Lord, now what have they found?”  Please understand that we were not bringing in anything illegal. But with bureaucrats the simplest things can go very wrong very fast. (Remember, I am from Washington DC, and I worked in the government.) So I was really worried. After a few more inspections they exited the truck. We were pacing nervously on the dock while trying to appear serenely confident. The inspector came over. "Nice photo," she said.   "Thanks," I replied, "Which one?" I had no idea what she was talking about.  "The one with Bill Clinton," she said. Can you believe it? They cut open a box that happened to have photos, and there smiling out at them was President Clinton, with me sitting next to him at dinner, at our Georgetown class reunion at the White House. Bill saved the day!

Now we had to reload the truck, which took hours. At about 7 pm the mover called to say it was getting late; the truck would spend the night in Tijuana and come to us in Calafia the next morning. I said, “Nothing doing!”  We’d never discussed leaving the truck anywhere. Yes, we understood that it was late, but the truck should be driven to Calafia to spend the night in front of the villa. They could return in the morning to unload it. The mover grudgingly agreed, but we soon realized he had no intention of doing that. As the truck finally left the dock at 8:45, he called to say that, so sorry, but unfortunately the headlights didn’t work, and the truck wasn’t safe to drive. They’d have to leave it in Tijuana overnight. I’ve heard that there are some nice parts of Tijuana, but most of it that I have seen is shabby and scary. It is a HUGE city, and incredibly confusing. I was unhappy, and let him know there was no way my entire household belongings were going to spend the night in the driver's neighborhood in TJ.  He was irritated and reminded me that he was a professional at this and had been doing it for years.  He had no intention of parking the truck in the driver’s neighborhood. It would be stored in a secure parking lot. Since we had no choice, we followed the truck over to the lot to see where it would spend the night. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the headlights came on at a place where the driver needed to see the road ahead, and then went out again once he passed it. Just a coincidence...

We finally got home at 11pm.  As exhausted as we were there was no way I was going to bed until I stood under some scalding water and scraped off the film of oil and dirt that had settled on my skin.  The next morning the truck arrived, and the movers unloaded everything.  There were so many boxes that people in the neighborhood began to walk by to take a look.  I’m pretty sure there was a pool going over whether or not we’d actually get all those boxes into our little house.  Well, we did, but oh, the piles of stuff! Boxes to the ceiling in every room, the hallway, and the garage. We have little lanes to walk through, but that's all. There are so many boxes, and the house is so small. God knows where everything will go. I have already opened a few boxes to find things that are definitely destined for eBay. Let some other woman get excited about building a collection of Ferragamo scarves. I am determined to have a simpler life. It’s hard to believe I gave away or sold so much in VA, and still have so much unnecessary stuff that came all the way to Baja.  It’s ridiculous!  And, not only did we go to the trouble and expense of packing, moving and bringing it across the border.  The worst part is that I only now (too late) understand that  we really don’t want these things in this place.  They aren’t right for a beach house in Baja.  Wonderful for a Georgian house in Virginia, but very out-of-place here. 

And, here it all sits because we were not really ready for it. The kitchen is unfinished. My bathroom is unfinished, (by “unfinished” I mean no tub, no toilet, no sink.) So we can't unpack. Oh, and the 6' whirlpool tub is sitting in the bedroom waiting for plumbing. My closet is full of boxes, so we can't unpack my clothes. And there are lots and lots of clothes! The cabinetmaker is due to install the bottom kitchen cabinets shortly; then we can begin to make some progress. We can put things away before the counter tops and walls are done. We can finish the doors later.  Unpacking will be wonderful. Like Christmas!  A lot of this stuff we packed last August - a full year ago. I hardly even remember what I own, and I'm committed to learning to live happily with a whole lot less.

Well, I wanted the adventure of living in another country, and, so far, that is just what I got.  And now that the household stuff is here, that makes us even more officially ex-pats.  ‘Cause I can tell you for damn sure, I will not be doing that again any time soon.

People who read this article also read these:

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• Your Second Home: Canada and Mexico
• Why retirees are fleeing the U.S.
• Baja Real Estate Developers to Build Eco Friendly Homes
• Promising 2008 for Tourism and Real Estate in Mexico

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