(Took six mover guys to unload the infamous green cabinet!!)

We received our shipment of “stuff” just last week. When we got email confirmation that it was scheduled to be delivered on April 4, as was originally “promised”, Caleigh immediately responded with, “There’s no catch?” Her incredulous face had,”You mean it’s actually going to work out as planned!?” written all over it. I had to chuckle over that! They are learning! Turns out delivery did have to be delayed by just one day due to poor weather at port, but that’s understandable and logical and out of anyone’s control.
Ok, so delivery day was another beautiful sunny day in Mexico… (Don’t hate us!  😉)  First time I think we’ve ever moved house without rain!!  They were due to arrive at 9:00 and I had no idea what to expect. We were told it would take two days to finish unloading.  10:00 a.m. rolls around and no truck…but not stressing because it’s not unusual for 9:00 to easily mean 10:00… 11:00 even!   A “scheduled” appointment time is usually open to interpretation.  And we’ve learned that most people here don’t like to be directly or obviously pushed or pressured (who does, really?); you don’t get far with such an approach.  So you get good at waiting for everything!  Finally at 10:30 a Santa Fe Relocation truck pulls up in front of our place.  It’s mid-sized and 4 movers hop out of it.  At this point I’m assuming (should never do that, especially HERE!) that this is today’s truck with today’s crew.  Like they did in Canada (only in reverse of course!), I figured that they would unload this truck, go back and load up with the rest of the stuff to be delivered tomorrow.  “Rap rap rap” sounds the metal knocker on the front door.  I am right at the door, super excited that this is finally happening, but I wait the appropriate length of time, as if unaffected, making my way in my own sweet time from the other end of the house! Lol!  Don’t want to appear to be too eager!  After obligatory niceties in Spanish, I know there is a problem when the chief mover guy hands me his phone to talk with the English speaking person on the other end…the she on the line is dramatic and frustrated as the security at the main gate won’t let the truck in without paying a $2000 peso fee (this confuses me immensely as I see a truck already parked right in front of my house)…their company has moved people into our community before and never had to pay anything and she needs me to get on the phone with the admin office to try to figure out what’s going on…I wish in the moment I had been thinking clearer and not so affected by her emergency-tone because I would have pushed back and asked her to speak with admin directly because my attempts to find someone who spoke English had me passed around to no less than 5 different people, none of which could speak any English!?! I’m scrambling to try to solve this problem that most certainly is not mine to solve, and the chief mover guy “rap rap raps” on the door again to let me know it’s all solved.  He goes back to chatting with his crew who are sitting on the front steps and I go back into the kitchen,  still not sure what the issue was, as the truck is there.  Not sure I’ll ever get used to this feeling of perpetual confusion!

Next thing I know there is a very loud engine revving and very big breaks squeaking and I run to the window from the sink and the dishes I’m trying to get out of the way to see a shipping container on a transport attempting to back up into our driveway!  So THAT’S the truck they were talking about!!! The security detail for the community is just buzzing!!  There are 4 security on foot who were nearby and two cars suddenly there in our little corner of the Colony!!  Now they have something to do!!😉  They spend the day directing traffic around the transport and keeping a close eye on things.  A mover guy comes in to the house and says,”Señora…” and then motions for the door and there is one of the security guards needing to talk to me.   I listen politely as he prattles on in record-speed, excited Spanish and from his tone and flailing gestures and the very few words I can actually understand,  I figure out that he’s sharing his plan for how to deal with this truck being here and keeping the traffic flowing…he stops for an audible breath and I break into the “conversation” with my “No hablo Español…”(no speak Spanish).  He laughs and goes on and I think he’s saying that I don’t have to worry about anything with the trucks, he’s got it covered.   Amazing what understanding you can glean from mostly tone and gesture alone!  Then he welcomes us to our new casa and points to the security house up the road that I can go to if I need help.  Nice guy!  And truthfully I was very thankful for all the security presence, because out of the transport pour 6 more mover guys!!!  10 mover guys altogether!!! (An aside: Not sure seat belt laws exist here – the other day on my way back from taking the kids to school,  I saw a construction crew riding in the open bed of a pick up truck and 15 guys hopped out of that!!!)

The moment of truth arrives when the truck is opened – first time since loading at warehouse in Markham!!  How did everything fare??  Was quite a journey from loading onto trucks and ferried from Hillsdale to Markham over the course of three days.  Then loaded into container and trucked to port at Montreal, then loaded onto ship for sea transport to port at Vera Cruz then loaded onto transport and trucked to Mexico City!!  i was very hopeful that damages would be minimal, but just thinking of the path our contents took, we were definitely preparing for the possibility! (During unpacking  we would discover that  only five items were damaged…not bad from a total of 283 boxes!!!)  So the door opens…I’m standing with the mover guys as I have to confirm that the door was indeed locked and then head mover guy opens the latch, unhitches the door and we all let out a collective gasp and jump back as two very large boxes filling the opening (mattresses) shift and threaten to fall out on us!  I should note that everything in our community is on a hill, and the truck is parked with its back end pointing downhill…hmmm…if their plan was to also employ gravity to help unload it was indeed working!! Head mover “monkey” guy now climbs up the outside of the truck to brace the boxes with his whole body to avoid any further shifting…Six more mover guys advance to catch the boxes as they are coaxed out.  Crisis averted!  My job for the day was to play bingo!!  No kidding!  Chief mover guy and I each had a bingo sheet with many numbers – we were to cross off each box number as it came off the truck and I was to direct each box to the appropriate room – chief mover guy placed a dresser out for me to put my bingo card on and wrote the names of the rooms in Spanish on the wrapping that covered the dresser so I could shout out rooms in the language the mover guys could understand!  Chief mover guy stayed with me for most of the day, while head mover guy directed his guys and stayed on the truck and pulled boxes to the back for removal.  A very efficient system!  The piano is of course VERY heavy…they decided that the drop from the transport was too risky, so they backed the second smaller truck up to it, and 8 of them lowered it from one truck to the next and then to the ground.  Was a little nerve-wracking watching that happen!

Once the container was empty the movers began unwrapping, un-boxing everything.  Head mover guy was helping me trouble shoot how to get the infamous green cabinet up off of it’s side and into standing position(!).  During one of many awkward pauses between people who struggle to communicate, he points at one of the blue tags that every box has to identify it as ours and he asks me if the date on it was the day it was packed in Canada…yes, of course…it was packed December 16-18…and that’s when I realized it has been 4 months since we boxed all of this up…4 months!? Has been a bit like Christmas rediscovering our old favourites…and quite literally like Christmas…the very efficient movers on the Canadian side packed a few gifts I had collected and wrapped for Aaron and the kids before I could edit them from the cabinet they were in…so they opened their latent gifts on Sunday once I found them!    Was a fun surprise!!

Lots of work ahead of us as we set up and try to make a home here.  Having our familiar items and photos and keepsakes back is helping us to feel a little less like visitors!