2nd Casualties

Posted by on August 20, 2011 in Blog, Uncategorized | 0 comments

Last month I celebrated my birthday… I won’t tell you what exact year… just that I’m one year closer to 40!  Ohh!

My birthday was a little of “this and that” this year.  We celebrated the day before with a birthday lunch and on the actual day, made the 10 hour drive to Mahajanga.  Jamie was a fabulous hubby and made me feel incredibly special throughout the day despite the lack of “ideal” birthday circumstances.  3 weeks after my birthday, I received the much anticipated birthday package from my folks… all presents, all for me!  I was even forewarned to not open this box in front of the kids because there wasn’t anything in there for them!  That evening after the kids were fast asleep, Jamie and I sat down and opened this treasured box of love.  A box of love it was… Pete’s coffee, tea, a french press coffee cup, a latte frother, sweet smelling soap and lotion… all items for some pampering and “mommy time”.  It was only until later that I discovered that my much anticipated birthday box of love was also our second set of casualties in Madagascar.  You may remember our first casualties–Jamie’s soccer cleats and Eliana’s titi.  Apparently there was also a skirt and a silver bracelet in the box… both wrapped up in birthday paper like the rest of the items.  Somewhere between Santa Barbara, CA and Mahajanga, Madagascar… they got pilfered.  Our best guess is that it occurred in the capital city of Madagascar when the box was apparently “resealed” because of external damage to the box.  In the days of old, the pilfering of mail was a major problem in Madagascar… sometimes some items were stolen and sometimes the whole package was never to be seen.  These last 8 months, we’ve been incredibly encouraged as we’ve seemingly received every box and everything in the boxes… until now and this second set of casualties.  So incredibly disappointing and such a reminder that we live in such an incredibly impoverished and corrupt country.



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