Once again, I’ve been “evacuated” from the 100-Acre Sandbox. It’s been unreal, but not at all unsafe. Even though the Middle East situation is volatile, at no point has anything been aimed at diplomats in the sandbox, so this evacuation/drawdown/whatever feels a little extreme.
The whole thing is unsettling, though. I had been preparing to leave a
whopping six days later anyway, and being told one day that you’re leaving the
day after instead of in a week (on a nonstop flight, no less) is jolting. I’d
been trying to prepare anyway for a gap (my successor doesn’t have a visa yet)
and kept getting pulled to other things, so there’s no real SOP on my job. I
can work remotely, but as I’ve discovered, the two things I really need access
to are inaccessible.
The travel to D.C. – where I was to be on Tuesday, 10/31 anyway – was miserable.
It’s possibly the worst travel day I’ve ever experienced.
We checked out at 9 a.m., each with a 50-pound bag, a 20-pound carry-on and wearing
or carrying out PPE, which is heavy as all get-out. After weighing the bags
four times in five minutes on different scales (??), we were brought in groups
to the place where we catch the helicopter to our Sister Sandbox at the
airport. There, we waited for a flight to Amman. We have a little plane and
they kept going back and forth with groups. I know a lot of people at the SS,
so I chatted with them and had lunch in the cafeteria. Whitefish and spinach,
not a bad way to end. (I’d had a burger, fries, carrots and ice cream for my
last meal at the main Sandbox.)
My flight got to Amman at 6:30, and boarding for my onward (my routing was
Doha – D.C.) was to be in an hour, so that wasn’t bad. I ran up to the lounge,
grabbed some chicken and rice and went to the gate, where I met up with some
other refugees.
By 7:27, there were still no gate agents around. Eventually, someone came
but no one ever made any announcements. They never put any information up on
the sign, but we pieced together (which is hard since any information was given
in Arabic) that nothing was going to happen any time soon. At some point, I got
a text from the airline – the only one in the group of 6-8 of us who did – that
said there was “mechanical trouble” and we would receive an update by 10 p.m.
We never did, but by that time we’d figured out that the flight wouldn’t go
and somehow we had to get our bags back ourselves. The whole planeload of people
had to. We saw people leaving in large groups and followed them, grabbing an
airline person and basically forcing him to speak to us in English about what
was going on. He explained (or tried to) that we had to get our exit visas
canceled and get our bags. Telling him we didn’t have exit visas didn’t seem to
register to him.
Meanwhile, one in our group was contacting the travel agency and trying to
get us re-routed, and, as we followed the group outside of security – meaning we’d
have to go back through again – we found a gaggle of people clamoring for … we
weren’t sure. There was no information desk, no nothing. In asking for
information, we got a QR code “chat.” I tried it and never got a response.
In the throng of hysterical people, a customs (or something) agent grabbed
my passport as I was trying to explain that I had no exit visa to cancel. He
grabbed it, and many other people’s, and went into a room.
Picture a hunch of hungry refugees at a door where people occasionally
surfaced to hand out bags of food to specific people. That’s what happened –
some immigration people (I guess) were copying a couple hundred people’s
passports and handing them back out, calling names 2-5 at a time. It was a
nightmare.
By this time, my group had been confirmed on a different airline scheduled
for 3:25, and at this point it was maybe 10 p.m. Someone told me to make a
scene and demand mine, so I tried to, politely, pull the diplomat card. I told one
guy I didn’t need an exit stamp, so grab my passport, it was the black one.
(Another guy in our group had his taken at the same time I did and he got his
back almost immediately.) Well, it didn’t work. I think he moved me back in the
line.
Finally, the airline guy we grabbed helped prompt, probably using his penis.
Since I don’t have one, apparently my voice doesn’t work either.
Anyway, we then had to exit through customs, getting stamped out, and claim
our bags. For the diplomats in the group, this wasn’t a big deal since we have
a short line and free visas. But the poor contractors on the flight had to
cough up $60 for a visa, only to grab their bags and then go check in again.
Since our rebooked flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 3:25 a.m., we
couldn’t check in until 12:25, which meant we had to hang out in the crappy
ticket area for about two hours. Finally, we got checked in and went through
immigration/security for the second time and then headed up to the lounge for
2-3 hours – the flight was delayed until 4:20 a.m.
The lounge was nice and the whole thing was just so absurd. I went through
the line to get food and I remember thinking, “Wow, this is exactly the same
menu they had last time I was here.” And I realized “the last time I was here”
had been 5-6 hours earlier. But we all got a table, got to know each other and
talked, while some of us grabbed catnaps.
Finally, we went to the gate area, where we met up with a lot more refugees
who had originally been scheduled for that flight. They looked fresh as daisies
because upon arrival at 5-6 p.m., they took cabs into the city and checked into
lovely hotels for a couple hours, showered, had decent meals and then set back
out. We looked bedraggled and exhausted, but we all got on the flight to
Frankfurt. I even got lucky and had an empty seat next to me.
Although that flight had some rough turbulence and we landed an hour late,
we made it fine to the final flight. It was perfect. Although I cannot sleep on
planes, I caught up on movies, watching the last Indiana Jones one (it tried
too much), “No Hard Feelings,” “Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret” and “Guy
Ritchie’s The Covenant.”
We landed and everyone dispersed, although we do have a WhatsApp group so,
once we catch up on sleep, can get together and discuss the whole situation. It’s
not something that people who haven’t been through it can relate to.
This morning, I woke up at 7 a.m. with a terrible migraine and I took a
walk. I’m in Ballston and starting 10/31 I was going to be here anyway, so I
got a hotel near where I will be then, since that other one wasn’t available
today. I walked there this morning to figure out where it was and as I was
nearing it, someone walked out who I thought looked familiar. I, not really
loudly, called her name, assuming if it wasn’t hear she’d keep walking. But it
was her! She’d been booted off the island a week before, in the first group and
had landed there.
We took a long walk to Trader Joe’s and Target and just talked about the process.
It’s just been unreal, especially since, so far, nothing that really screams “these
people are unsafe, get them out of here.” We’re planning on dinner tonight and
church tomorrow morning – there is one nearby.
Meanwhile, migraine gone, I came back to the hotel, took a long nap and woke
up to the second quarter of FSU. I’m hoping to put this all behind me but it’ll
take awhile. I’m still exhausted and the emotions are running.
But FSU is winning, so that is something.
