Packed, Re-Packed & Packed Again!

I am finally . . . . did you hear that, FINALLY completely done packing.

While I had all of my own personal things packed last Thursday (except for my laptop, toiletries & meds), I went shopping Monday for WISH LIST items for the African children that we are moving into the Choir Academy House when we arrive next week. (Oh my gosh……………NEXT WEEK).

I bought 3000 Vitamins (10 bottles) at Costco. Then I got 3 First Aid Kits at Target. Next stop was the Dollar Store, where I got 12 Rulers, 100 Pens, 12 Pencil Sharpeners (now sing along with me “and a partridge in a pear tree”). Sorry, the 12’s got to me!!! Final stop was Wal-Mart, where I found 10 twin-sets of sheets (for $7.46 per set) and 21 Loofas. I took almost every one they had. You should have seen me going up and down all of the cosmetic aisles ripping off all of the loofas so proudly on display! All that shopping, and less than $300.

Monday night I packed everything up in the three suitcases I have from team members. Each of us is taking an “extra” suitcase just for these needed items for the choir children. Vitamins weigh A LOT. And I had previously been given something like 40 tubes of toothpaste. (each tube weighs approximately ½ pound, so we were taking 20 pounds of toothpaste). More on that later.

We had also previously been given a bunch of clothes - - - shirts, pants, sweatshirts, etc. After stuffing everything I could possibly get into these 3 suitcases, I weighed them. I had already omitted about 7 of the really heavy sweatshirts and sweaters and I was at like 49-53 pounds in each bag. Being that I don’t necessarily trust the accuracy of the luggage scale I am borrowing, I checked with Erica to see what we should not take for this trip. We agreed it should be the toothpaste. But that meant going through ALL of the luggage to discover where I had hidden it. I figured I could set that for a Tuesday project (yesterday) since I was pretty beat from all of this original packing. True, I had taken the tubes out of the box and placed them in Ziploc bags in groups of 8. But still - - it was a matter of finding the darn things.

I ended up packing 10 tubes of toothpaste (I think there’s actually maybe 12 or even 14, but I’m not diving into that stuff again to remove the excess). And of course it is not all in the same suitcase, since if something should happen and a piece of luggage doesn’t make it for whatever reason, we would hopefully still get SOME of the product to arrive in Rwanda.

And while I am doing this, I also decide that maybe I could get more of my personal belongings in one of my bigger suitcases, instead of my backpack. So I take everything out and try to stuff it into another suitcase. But since I pack with cubes, I just couldn’t make it work. I pushed, I prodded, I whined…but nothing. So I finally said “uncle” and put it all back in the backpack, along with some of the lightweight sweatshirts from the “extra” suitcases. My backpack now weighs about 35 pounds, so I will definitely not be able to take it in my carry-on to Seattle.

After re-sorting the suitcases, I finally close the last lid and weigh them. I either have gotten very, V-E-R-Y good at packing, or the scale isn’t working right. Each of the three bags weighed exactly 44 pounds. YEA!!!!! (I’ve even given Colin – a fellow Rwanda Team Member, his packed extra bag….Will meet Betsy around 11am this morning).

You see, I needed to get the weight down, because Erica found some bookbags in Portland and wants to add those to our luggage, and maybe some other things. So I have given her a cushion of 18 pounds (and we may be able to put a little more in my own personal bag as well). I have been told that we have to be careful with what we put in carry-on, because Ethiopian Airlines weighs the carry-on bag (it can’t weigh over 15 pounds).

So after all of the packing, repacking and packing once again – I am now in the wonderful position of having NOTHING TO DO. Yea and Woohoo.

Leaving for Seattle in roughly 60 hours. And 5 days from right now, we will all be on a plane for Dulles Airport (IAD) in Washington DC.

LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN.