Duty calls

One of the basic things the State Department does is provide service for American Citizens overseas. There are a lot of us living abroad, for a variety of reasons. Travelers – both business and pleasure – people who work overseas, Americans who have married foreign nationals and who live in that country, folks who retire and move overseas, those evading the IRS or other nefarious reasons, whatever. There are a bunch here, there and everywhere. 

And from time to time, they need assistance. Renew passports, register births of babies, voting information – whatever. They even die sometimes. That’s what the State Department is for – to help in those times.  It’s one of the reasons I like my employer.

Sadly, some of the Americans overseas suffer emergencies, and, just like when you’re in the U.S., sometimes these emergencies don’t conveniently happen during business hours. So embassies and consulates have what we call a duty phone that’s manned when the embassy or consulate is closed. The whole point – and the option you press on the dial pad to get it – is for U.S. citizens in need of emergency service.

Apparently, my idea of an emergency is not necessarily what other people, especially panicking people, consider an emergency.

Yesterday, I got a call from a woman who had missed her connecting flight and been told by the airline to go find a hotel and to come back at noon the next day for a flight. She was beside herself, distraught. I had no understanding of the situation and had to pull out details, such as if she’d been rescheduled on a flight or what. (Based on the level of panic, I really thought the airline just said screw you and left her high and dry. No. They put her on the next available flight – about 20 hours from them – and said go, check into a hotel, get a decent night’s sleep and a good meal and come back; we’ll get you there.)

After questioning the woman, trying to figure out what the problem was – I mean, it’s not like she was stuck here – she said she was “scared” to leave the airport. Had I not been so bewildered, I would have burst out laughing. I asked why she as scared and she said “all that’s going on.” Um ... do you mean the coup attempt weeks ago, after which nothing has happened? Yes, she did. I told her the airlines had told her to get a hotel so she’d be comfortable, but no one would throw her out of the airport should she want to stay there 20 hours. She seemed OK with that, and then I asked her where she was transiting to. She was traveling alone, so I kinda felt bad for her, assuming she was some novice traveler who’d never ventured far from New York, where her travel originated. She was heading for the Republic of Congo, alone, but was scared of a 20-hour layover in Istanbul. Oh my. Sympathy gone.

My ongoing saga encompassed three calls in one night (11, midnight, 4) and one the next (11). I really felt bad for this guy, because he was in the U.S. and was worried his mom was having a stroke here in Istanbul. However, there wasn’t much I could do. He’d spoken to her two hours before, and although she told him she was at home, he thought she was in a hospital and hoped I could help find her. Since there are 15 million people in Istanbul, I couldn’t begin to guess how many hospitals there are, and I cannot sit and call them all asking on the off-chance that some random American has checked in.  (And, beyond that, even if I  found her, unless I have a privacy act waiver from her, I couldn’t tell him, anyway.)

The guy was really nice and I managed to talk him into trying his mom again. Both he and his brother were trying to call hospitals but not having any luck. I asked where Mom lived in Istanbul. He did not know. He gave me the name of a suburb or something, but that was it. I asked how long she’d been here.  Since May – long enough to require her visa to be renewed. What was her landlord’s name? He didn’t know, but he thought the guy spoke Arabic, as it was his mother’s native language. Not helpful. Who are her friends here? No clue. Well, what does she do all day here? Not a guess. So, why is she here again? Oh, she had a stroke before so she decided to go to Istanbul to recover. Brilliant. You have a major medical issue and you basically move to another country and, although you have a phone number, no one who cares for you has any idea how to get in touch with you. Good Son planned on flying to Istanbul on Friday to check on her, but this was Tuesday.

Good Son guy called back an hour later and said he’d Whatsapped his mom, was still convinced she was suffering a stroke, and had an address for her apartment, or hotel, or whatever it was she was staying in. He wanted to get her to a hospital. (And yes, this means his mother was right where she told her other son she was – at home.) I gave him the number of the English-speaking police and suggested he call it and ask them to go and check.

At 4 a.m., he called back and said he’d done that and they deemed her all right. Crisis over, or so I thought. The next night, he called again – 11 p.m. – and said she was in a hospital and she said she was being discharged, but he didn’t think she should be. He said he hadn’t found anyone at the hospital – and he did know the name – who spoke English, did I have a translation service? Um, no. But let’s explore this, shall we? You just told me you spoke to your mom a half an hour ago. She is in a hospital, under a doctor’s care.  It was after 10 p.m. when you called; although all Istanbul hospitals have English-speaking people on staff, the hospital is closed and they’ve gone home. That not only means you can’t find someone who speaks English, but it also means they are not going to discharge your mom.

 

He started thinking more rationally and I asked him about people he knew who might could help translate or whatever. He made some comment about he knew some but “they were asleep.” I was like, um, *I* was asleep! He had no idea that my job wasn’t to sit by the phone on off-hours waiting on him. I explained it was an emergency line for during non-business hours, but since his mom was in a hospital and being taken care of, it wasn’t an emergency. Fortunately, he seemed to get it and I haven’t heard from him since.

There’ve also been people with expired or stolen passports. Could I call the airline for the one guy? Um, no. I am not your travel service. What I will tell you is to make an appointment to get an emergency passport – they exist – but I will not arrive at the airport waving it in time for you to catch your 11 a.m. flight. You will have to change that yourself.

Another completely frantic woman called with an expired passport for the 5-year-old in a family of four. She’d realized it had expired, but talked to someone (?) in the U.S., and they assured her the kiddo could enter on it. I had to explain that before you enter, you must exit, and even though the U.S. might let in a little kid without a proper ID, Turkey – rightfully – won’t let the kid exit. Once the mom grasped we were talking about two different countries, she got it and was OK.

Today’s ticked woman really doesn’t get it. She was calling from the States (and let me know she’d been on hold “20 minutes,” which I know was a crock) on behalf of her Italian husband, who was trying to leave Istanbul for America. Had something to do with his prior travel; the gate agent or someone had told him he couldn’t board. She had been with him at the time and went on ahead, I guess.

Anyway, when she was done with her spiel, I confirmed again the guy was traveling on an Italian passport and then informed her I could not help, as he was not an American citizen. Oh, she was not happy. He was MARRIED to an AMERICAN, for crying out loud. Um, that does not make him American. And, as important as your trip might be for the both of you, his entry into America is not an emergency.

Duty line – for Americans in need of emergency assistance. Your husband – not American; not even emergency situation anyway. Call back during business hours.

I have not gotten any scam calls, which apparently are big here. Someone gets baited for months and then the scammer, who claims to be American, falls victim to something needing exorbitant sums of money and tells the scam victim to call the consulate for assistance. It screams of scam to me, but the duty officer last week said he talked to some man who’d already sent $10k and then $35k to someone before thinking to confirm. Yikes. People aren’t so smart.

And I’ve gotten no calls from Americans trying to get into Istanbul. Turkey has slightly different entry requirements for tourists than most countries – more blank pages needed in a passport, or longer lead time before expiration, something like that – and apparently some people don’t bother to check that out before traveling and get stuck. But there’s nothing at all we can do about that, so those calls are going to be full of disappointment on the other end.

So that’s what I’m living for this weekend. I had thought about going to a movie, but the phone is so loud and I don’t know how to just turn it on vibrate. Plus, I don’t want to step out of “Jason Bourne,” to take some call from an idiot, so I’ve stayed close to home.

And right close to home, I found a little bit of home – Detroit!

Right up the road from it, there’s a little auto museum. It’s family-owned, and all the cars are licensed. My guess is it’s like touring Jay Leno’s garage. It’s called Klasik Otomobil Muzemiz – Classic Car Museum, if you couldn’t figure that out. (And if that’s you, I fully expect you to be calling the duty phone shortly …)

The cars are phenomenal, and in great shape. The guys said most were acquired in the early 1990s from the U.S., but there were also cars from Europe there. (Oh, the little Triumphs!). They had Fords, Chevys and Caddys – just amazing. There was a VW Bug painted like a U.S. flag, plus some Harleys and little pedal cars. There was also a diner, though we went in the morning and it wasn’t open yet. Basically, it was a great little man-cave. I’d love to have an event there.

They had neon signs from ages ago, like Spuds Mackenzie and Bartyles & James. There was also a Miami U one, which I sent to Laurie to show Chris. Hubcaps lined the walls, plus there were radio faces and just all kinds of stuff, shown off in slick fashion. It was just a great place to spend a morning.

Gave me a break from the silly AmCits.