Diary of an emigrant

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Container

The container holding all our worldly possessions is still locked up in the port of Manaus after 5 weeks. We received word today that the officials there (who have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for FIVE WEEKS) were now demanding that we dedetizasar (this verb makes more sense if you think of DDT) the container, as ‘all containers from Asia have to be dedetizasado’. Hmm, well Naice got a bit upset about this and suggested the officials who were demanding this go and get an atlas, and said that to the best of her knowledge and belief Europe and Asia were two entirely different continents. She then followed this up, with hardly a pause for breath, by telling them that if there were any damage as a result of this entirely unnecessary process (a process which, of course, WE have to pay for), we would be suing them. I enjoyed this part of the conversation muchly, although we wonder quietly whether we may have unleashed the bribery and corruption beast. Time will tell, but I will always maintain that the conversation was worth its weight in gold. Just wish our container was, too...

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