Once the
decision to go back to Germany had been taken and communicated we kicked-off
the preparations for the actual move. We told our landlord that we would be
leaving at the end of the year, we booked that one-way ticked to Frankfurt and
the movers took stock of our household that will be shipped out and back to
Europe before Christmas. Well, hopefully.
Boy, am I
glad, that we don’t have to organize everything ourselves but get help from the
relocators. The list of necessary paperwork is daunting and all those copies,
translations and authentications that have to be presented at customs is
something else. But the masterpiece comes from the Ministry of Culture. We have
to register every original piece of art in our possession that is a painting or
made of wood, stone, terracotta etc.
So
yesterday, I spent two hours with a girl from the movers cataloguing the art in
our house. And believe me, I had no idea that we were such artsy people! She
took pictures with her mobile, measured everything and also wrote down the
author, the year and the title – or made up something in case I just didn’t
know.
What is
considered art is something else, and for two hours I was torn between
hysterical laughter, an amazed Really??
and outright frustration. At one point I wanted to scream “Have you lost your
mind in this country?!” and throw her out of the house. But then again, she was
a nice person and quite apologetic and it wasn’t really her fault, so I kept my
mouth shut.
But the totally
mind-numbing thing is that I still don’t understand why we have to do it. We
didn’t register our stuff like that when we entered the country three years
ago, so how will the Ministry determine what’s really ours and what we might
try to smuggle out of the country illegally? And if all this is only a measure to
prevent the out-of-hand exportation of Argentinean art, why do we have to
register every Mexican figurine bought at a street market in Chiapas or even
the cheap pencil sketch that we brought back from Vietnam long before we even
dreamt of moving to Buenos Aires?
Well, I
asked a friend who moved back last year and already went through the motions.
He just laughed, told me not to worry and advised me to let the movers take the
pictures and handle the red tape. Am I worried? Well, not really. Hm, yeah, I
admit, I am a little bit worried. Especially when I imagine our stuff being
held up at customs, moulding away in a container at the Buenos Aires harbor
until they release it sometime in September 2014. But then again, we aren’t the first who move out of here,
right?
No, what
really bugs my little nitpicking German heart is the question Why? Why … how, I mean, it’s really … it
doesn’t make any sense … why, please, why!?! I keep turning it over and over in
my mind, and it still doesn’t make any sense. None whatsoever. The only
explanation I can come up with is that it is either a big occupational therapy
for a lot of public servants. Or that it is all a big heist and there are some
brown envelopes involved in the process that keep everyone happy.
Both
scenarios would be very sad, indeed. Well, I guess, I will never find out the
truth … and this is probably for the better. In the meantime, I try to keep
calm and stop imagining all the things that might go wrong. Wish me luck!
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