The Great Escape Continues for Many

There are still thousands of Americans stranded overseas after borders and airports closed last week all over the world. The numbers in the press vary but there are at least 9-13,000 Americans still stranded, in 28 countries. 

Americans waiting for a charter flight out of Guatamala

Some Americans have been repatriated this past week, including 1200 who were stranded in Peru and over 600 in Morocco  But this just a small number of all those who have reached out to American embassies and consulates worldwide asking for help.

It is not just Americans though. There are many thousands of Australians and Canadians stranded all over the globe. And cruise ships around the world are adrift as ports turn them away and passengers are unable to disembark.  There are at least 10 ships currently adrift carrying more than 10,000 passengers.

The ship that we booked originally is one of those. We expected to board the Eclipse in Chile on March 15th to take us to California, but the ship was refused landing privileges and is now en-route to California non-stop with the wrong set of passengers - people who expected to leave the ship on the 15th. The passengers on our cruise? Alll 3000 were in Santiago at the same time as us trying to catch the same flights we were trying to catch. You see our problem? Not only were all the flights out already booked, but there were 3000 extra people trying to find flights out before the airport closed two days later.

I always thought the main purpose of an embassy was to help citizens in need, however, under the current administration they have been more or less unsympathetic telling citizens to be prepared to hunker down in place and that it is not their job or intention to rescue everyone. When planes came to remove embassy staff no places were offered to civilians. Speaking as someone who used to work in the United Nations and has some familiarity with diplomats, my question is: what is their purpose of an embassy if not to reach out and help citizens in need? 

At the time I wrote The The Great Escape blog I thought Franklin and three of our friends  were the only people in Buenos Aires scrambling to exit South America. So in the previous blog I tried not to make too big a deal of this event. Someone said I presented being stranded twice in two different countries as a “lighthearted adventure and a thrilling episode rather than a perilous dangerous worrisome narrow miss”. Well, that is the nature of the phrase, “having an adventure.” You try to reframe your experience to sound less perilous and more amusing than it really was. 

They suggested that the post sounded like I was having a ball. Did it sound like that to you? That was not my intention. While reporting the facts of our journey I didn’t want to sound like a drama queen so I may have underplayed the drama.  But it was dramatic at the time and still seems so to me. And still continues to be for the thousands of people who are still stranded.

Some of us who managed to get flights out before the airport and borders closed in various countries have been in contact, sharing our experiences, still staggered at the changed in the world this past week. Strangers who shared this experience have contacted me via Facebook. I can’t speak of the North American experience as you self quarantined because I didn’t share it. Maybe you were staggered by the speed of current events too.

In the past two weeks, airports and borders closed worldwide with only a day or two of warning, not months or years like they did before and during WWII. I don't want to repeat the details of our experience here, they are in my previous blog. You already know that we could not find a flight to the US from Argentina so we went to Chile where our troubles started all over again as they once again scheduled to shut the airport one day before our flight. We found ourselves stranded on three separate occasions in one week with few if any options to exit. I hope this doesn’t sound like a lighthearted adventure. Adventure yes, but really rather serious. 

I compared the possibility of us getting stranded overseas to my father and his family almost getting stranded in Europe a hundred years ago because it seems similar to me. But it wasn't really. His family left voluntarily, leaving a home and a support system of extended family in place there while we didn’t have those things either there or here. He was leaving, we were returning. We were escaping an international health crisis, He was trying to immigrate. But what we had it common was the border closing and having to exit before it happened. 

So what do Americans stranded overseas have to look forward to? Well, most will be in self-quarantine unable to leave their hotel room except to go to the grocery store or pharmacy. They will probably need a note from the hotel proving that is their address. At least that is what my friends living in Argentina need to do. One friend can walk her dog as far as the next corner. She can't go around the block. Groceries are open two hours a day in her small town in Mendoza.

I have previously posted many photos here and on Facebook of 9 de Julio, where we lived. Here is a photo of our neighborhood in quarantine, with no cars and no people. 

I am in contact with another person who chose to continue an extended vacation with family in Penang, Malaysia. One person per family can go out for groceries under their 'movement control' plan. 

But it is not so easy in other places. In Ecuador, the hotels have been told they need to close down so the travelers literally have nowhere to go. There is no one in the streets, shops are closed, there is no food, there is no street access. 

Anyway, I am relieved to be back. We chose this location in Scottsdale because we are surrounded by walking trails and open desert. It took me a week to stock the kitchen as there was nothing here except some salt. I am having a little trouble getting used to not hopping in the car several a day but you probably felt/feel the same way. I'm trying to keep in touch with people, particularly friends living alone. 

And I hope it won't be too long until we meet again.