Garage sale expat style!

We have only 11 days left in Angola, so the time has come when we are sorting, organizing, paring down and packing. It's a big job.  Well, to be fair, it's probably not half as big a job as moving is when you have a whole house with all your own stuff and you've lived in it for a long time...but in any case, it feels like a big job to us!

So, what do we do with all the stuff that we're not going to take with us?  Well, we do "garage sales" but a little differently than back home. 

So far I have given away a number of bags of clothes that no longer fit (so sad...bye bye pre-pregnancy body and clothes!).  These I have donated partially to an orphanage and partially to my old assistant. 

Over the last couple of weeks I have also been sending out emails to the entire staff of the school with big ticket items we are selling.  Things like our dryer (don't worry, I will be buying another one in Laos!), the vacuum, the bathroom scales, our living room carpet and some of our baby things like the baby gate, the mosquito net for the crib, etc.  It's quite funny how you can send an email with an attachment of things for sale, and within minutes you've got emails flying back at you, "I want this!" "I want that!"  Certainly makes you realize who is sitting at their computer when you send the email! :)

Finally, the last thing we're doing to get rid of stuff is having a living room sale/open-cupboard give-away.  Next week, after our going away BBQ for which I will still need a lot of my kitchen stuff, etc I will be having an empty-my-cupboards and living room sale.  Because my husband does not cook at all, he doesn't need anything that is in the cupboards.  Well, his chips are in there, and those we will set aside for him.  Everything else- all my spices, flours, baking goods, pasta, rice, canned goods, etc, etc will all be open for taking by those who come by that day.  I feel a bit weird asking people to pay for my food, so we'll let people take what they want for a donation that we will pass on to one of the local orphanages. 

Then in the living room I will set out all my little stuff- pans, woven baskets, small kitchen gadgets, etc for people to buy.  It'll all go for garage sale prices... some people like to gouge prices here just because they can, but I would rather just get rid of stuff and have people leave feeling like they got a deal. Why not?

So I just realized, I have a lot more work to do before Monday to make sure I find and put out everything that we want to get rid of!  Whew! Better get to it!