If I close my eyes, I can recall the familiar sound of our bird-tweeting doorbell and voice that calls out, “Mrs. Jeannie, a package from America is there!”
Mr. Ali, our postman in India, loved delivering this news to us. All our kids would spill out of the house in a great hurry, asking, “Who sent it? Can we go to the post office now?”
We’d bring the box home and just sit and marvel at it for a minute. We’d examine the holes where the rats managed to chew into it, praying they didn’t reach the Skittles. Then we’d text our teammates, “We got a box from America!” I remember the time we passed Pop Rocks around to a porch full of local friends. We all had a good laugh.
Every time we received a box, I thought, “What a lift! They haven’t forgotten about us; people remember us!” A familiar rush of home washed over our family.
“There might be candy in there,” I’d think. “Mike and Ikes, Kit Kats, sour gummy worms. Maybe the chocolate chips made it. Oh, I hope they sent M&M’s because I ate the last handful last night in a stressful, coping moment.”
The best care packages held special things we couldn’t buy overseas. A great friend once sent an entire year’s supply of Ziploc bags—in every single size. Do you know that Ziploc bags make a woman’s life overseas a hundred-times easier? Another friend sent a huge box of tampons. She knew we couldn’t get those either.
Sometimes people sent fun things for the kids, like glow-in-the-dark stars and bracelets, or those water growing dinosaurs. Even getting gifts with stickers, paint-by-number kits, beads for crafting, books, and DVDs were all huge hits.
I still remember the list I emailed to friends when they asked what to send. It included cupcake liners, marshmallow creme, taco seasoning, and baking supplies. I think I cried the time we opened a package that had blueberry muffins mix.
We also cried when a box ended up in the faraway city of Chennai. It had packaged food and, more importantly, letters from one of our kid’s classes in America. We found out from a handwritten letter sent to us from the post office that said, “Sorry ma’am, undeliverable. The package has much spilled liquid from a broken jar.”
You would be surprised what useful, creative things you miss when you no longer have access to them: magic erasers, stain remover sticks, granola bars, fitted sheets, Italian seasoning, Starbucks Via packets, Kool-Aid and Crystal Lite, deodorant that’s not the spray kind, and any kind of American candy. My list goes on and on.
Maybe you can’t live overseas like your friends. But you can give them a lift, a laugh, a lifeline, a smile, and an emotional boost to help them through another day, another month.
Discover more ways you can support your friends on the field.
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Quick tip: Always send items in plastic containers. Tuck everything into Ziploc bags and tape every outside inch of the box to discourage sniffing rats. Don’t send anything that melts or breaks—unless it’s chocolate chips. Always send chocolate chips.
Original article: www.frontiersusa.org/blog/article/my-life-overseas-care-packages-are-lifesavers
