There simply are things only the Expat Daddy can do!

Just two days before the Expat Daddy and the 2 elder girls travel to Qatar, I and the Expat Daddy are still cramming to finalize everything to close shop in the Philippines. It is just so hard with me being here in Qatar while he is there in the Philippines doing everything alone (well, of course there is still our very dependable yaya) but mostly everything is just up to him. What made matters really very complicated is that in the 2 weeks that he flew back to Manila, we have to finally decide on what we will do with our home.

Well actually even before he flew out, we already know what we wanted, the only question is how do we do it in only 2 weeks and with just him doing everything. We knew we wanted to just rent out the unit but we still haven't marketed it so we just decided to turn it over to the Property Management office and just wait until they find a tenant for us. The only catch there is that we don't know when they'd book one for us with so many other units they are managing. So what the Expat Daddy did immediately upon his arrival is to hold a get-together with our neighborhood friends to network with them. True enough, in one seating, he was able to find a tenant among our friends. As it happens, one of our tenant friends have long been eyeing our unit since we relocated back to Qatar and knew sooner or later, we will be putting our unit for rent.


So now, the unit's settled. Now comes the next problem, our friends who already are renting from another unit and would be moving to ours has their own furnishings so we need to pull out ours. Our problem now is where to store them. We can't bring them back to our Batangas home as the house is already fully furnished. Actually, what I really wanted to do is to bring the things to our house in Aparri in Cagayan Valley. We have not really finished the interiors of the house and it still remains unfurnished till now. But that would be next to impossible at the moment. We are not ready for such a task at the moment and Expat Daddy's cousin who is our caretaker for the house had already passed away and the other cousin who took over is too young to take responsibility. So we didn't have a choice but to sell them. Again, with his networking skills he was able to sell half of items to his friends and acquaintances in the compound, and even to the compound's personnel. 


Third, for those things we were not able to sell immediately, we just really need to pull out. The tricky part is that I am the one listed as homeowner so he can't move out unless I have the proper documents filled out and signed in the Property Management Office. But in just 2 days left, we do not have time for that anymore. So again, it's time to use his connections. As it happens he's quite popular with even the PMO's administrative staff so what he did was sell our tv to one of the staff on installment basis just so they'd give him the clearance without the required documents. Thank Goodness, his novel idea actually worked! 

So today, everything is almost done, it's time to start moving. He called up one of his friends to borrow a van to use in loading our personal effects, another contact who sourced for a moving truck to move the rest of the furniture. Yaay! Finally! For  time I was really scared we couldn't pull this through! Tomorrow would be his last day in Taguig. He already brought the girls back home to Batangas to get ready for Thursday's flight. He just needed to finalize the Lease Agreement and collect the cheques from our tenant friends and they're all set!


Thank God really that it was him in the Philippines and not me. Or else I wouldn't be able to accomplish any of those things. I don't have friends there and no doubt I won't be able to accomplish in a month what he had done in two weeks!

Funny, I remember the girls telling me once, when I was telling the guards at the compound gate of our unit number for us to get through "mei-mei, here in RW, all you have to say is Dada's name and all doors will be opened up for you!".


Now, was that an understatement! To this day, I still am referred to as "Jong's wife", I wonder when will be the time they'd realize my name's worth remembering too :). Hey, do you think the Expat Daddy would be that efficient without the Expat Mommy at his back?! Hahaha!