Things are moving along nicely and smoothly

The Case of the Missing Container
August 18, 2004

Things are moving along nicely and smoothly. We went back to the offices that were closed last week and they were open. We have since learned that Tuesday is a common day for offices to be closed and that we should call ahead before going. I learned another lesson on Sunday. I needed to go back to the tax office to pay a small bill. I dutifully looked at the schedule in our "Shemeshphone" booklet and saw that it was open late. I hopped in a cab and raced over there only to find it closed again. I didn't even get out of the cab and zoomed back home a little frustrated but still maintaining my "zel lo choshuv" (this is not important) attitude . It wasn't till a while later that I realized that the schedule said the office was open late on Monday. It was Sunday. Sunday may feel a lot like Monday in Israel, but that doesn't make it Monday!

Again, putting the lie to the sabra image, everyone we have dealt with in the various offices has been friendly and helpful. They have been very patient with our poor Hebrew skills. I've learned that Beit Shemesh has a very high percentage of immigrants, and not just people from New York and New Jersey. :) Of the approximately 70,000 residents of Beit Shemesh (which includes Ramat Beit Shemesh) 25% are immigrants. The largest group are from the former Soviet Union, as is evidenced by the many signs in Russian. Then comes Anglos and Ethiopians. A real melting pot.

We signed Meira up for Gan (Nursery school), which took all of about 10 minutes. Randi tried dazzling the woman in the misrad Hachinuch (Education office) with the fluent Hebrew she had written down on her notepad and rehearsed. The language situation looks to improve as we've also signed up for Ulpan which begins in September and runs 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 5 months. You think we might learn a little something from that?

Yesterday brought another example of how supportive Nefesh B'Nefesh has been. Being a licensed occupational therapist, Randi, like all health professionals, must get re-licensed here. Normally a person would have to figure which documents to gather together, such as diplomas, certificates, transcripts, evidence of work experience, etc. and bring it all to the Misrad Habriut (Ministry of Health) and plod through the Hebrew forms there. A couple of months before we left, Nefesh B'Nefesh sent an e-mail clearly identifying exactly which documents Randi needed to gather together. Then, today at their office in Givat Shaul, they hosted a session for health professionals. NBN staff assisted in filling in the Hebrew application. An employee from the Misrad Habriut was present at the office to review and certify the applications. Randi should receive her license in the mail in a couple of weeks.

So by now you must be asking about the subject line of this e-mail. As you know from previous e-mails the port workers here were on strike for the past few weeks. (Note: Striking in Israel is as common as breathing in other countries. Note 2: Living in such a socialistic environment would make a conservative out of some my most liberal friends.) Our container was diverted to Italy for a well deserved Mediterranean get away. (At our expense of course.) We received a call from our shipper a couple of days ago telling us that our container could be in as early as today. If we wanted we could mail him our Teudah Oleh and American passports so he could process our shipment. Most Olim have a visceral reaction to being asked to part with these documents, so I opted instead to go to the port in Ashdod to present the documents in person. My friend Saul Sladowsky and I found a cab driver who knew the ropes in Ashdod and would take us on a round trip to the offices we needed to go to. The women in the Agaf Hameches (Meches is customs tax, but I have no idea what Agaf means) was nice and helpful and we were in and out of there in 5 minutes.

We then went to our shipper's office to meet with Yossi. Yossi is a very nice guy who we had met at the Strand (our shipper) open house, or should I say open warehouse, in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a few months back. He went through all our paperwork, told us how much we'll have to pay in port fees, customs tax, and of course for the vacation of our container. As we were leaving we asked Yossi exactly where our containers were. He told us that officially he's being told that they are still in Italy, but rumor has it that they could be on one of the ships backed up in the harbor! So we really don't know where our stuff is, but we're sure it will show up eventually. If you happen to see a reddish ZIM container floating around please drop me an e-mail.

This morning we were debating among the family whether it would be worth it if our container "disappeared" and we could collect the $100K it's insured for. Most of us felt not, mainly because of all the pictures we have in there. Though part of me still feels it would be fun to take the money and go on a shopping spree to buy some new stuff and pocket the rest. The insured amount is so arbitrary anyway. When we were packing boxes and when the shippers came to our house in Edison to take our stuff we had to assign values to each item. Randi's sister Ailene was there helping us that day and mainly assumed this task. She would constantly say, "If the ship gets hit by a torpedo...". I had to remind her that there aren't too many German U-boats prowling the high seas blowing ships out of the water these days. Anyway, I'm sure we'll be very happy to get our stuff whenever it arrives.

I finally have all of our phones and internet lines set up. We've only been here for two weeks and we already have two broadband internet connections, an Israeli phone line, 3 cell phones, and two American phone lines. So if you want to get in touch with us here's how: