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| Who could deny this boy boarding? |
Thursday when boarding the plane for France, I was told that Easy Teasy needed a visa. Somehow I understood that under 6 years of age a visa wasn't required, probably something to do with the Sahel embassy being in French and looking on a secondary website. With the incredible help of the US embassy, we had just squeezed out the US visa this morning. There wouldn't have been time to get the French visa for him in time anyway. That afternoon I went to the French embassy. They said to come back tomorrow with the paperwork. I worked all evening to pull together the 32 pages to support the application. Unfortunately, we had terrible internet and I was really struggling to get the online application up. So I printed the application and filled it out by hand, not thinking about it needing to be registered in the computer system (This was the fatal step on my part). I also visited the Ethiopian airline and found out I could only change my flight to Sunday or Thursday.
Friday I went into the embassy begging to be seen. My application couldn’t be accepted, so I knew the clock was ticking. I ran to my friend’s house and worked through the application. It didn’t work. It said the website was down and requiring maintenance. I went back to the embassy to plead my case. They insisted it was working. I went to an internet café. The man said it was saying the website was down because there was an error on my application. So why didn’t it tell me that? I couldn’t go back and fix the error, so I had to refill in the whole application, knowing my possibilities were ticking away. After all this stress it was 11am when I got back to the embassy. The French woman was leaving the window and said she was not willing to see me at this time, but I can come in on Monday.
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| Lots of laughs... |
I was concerned that the flight I was planning to take to Paris wouldn’t arrive in time for my prebooked flight from Paris. But I couldn’t take the Sunday flight. I visited Ethiopian air office and the cost of changing my ticket was going to go up on Saturday morning. I called Travelocity whom we had booked the tickets through. They were extremely helpful and called me back in Sahel. I decided to take the gamble and cancel my flight completely with a partial refund. Sunday afternoon I looked for flights. Really my only possibility was flying out Tuesday morning, so I would have to get the visa on Monday or spend the next three days in the Paris airport while waiting for my flight.
Monday morning I went to the French embassy. I was the first person in line. They saw me early. I was the odd woman in the embassy who speaks only the native language and no French. I had all the paperwork in order. We had to wake Easy Teasy up for his picture, which he then cried for and I even felt like I bonded a little with the woman who had been so curt and mean with me in the past. She said maybe the visa would come through by the end of the day. 5pm I returned to the embassy. They had not heard approval from France. There would be no visa. I would spend 3 days in the Paris airport with a 9 month old baby.
Of course I had no chance of sleeping before the 3am flight out of Niamey. I did manage to sleep a couple hours while holding my sleeping baby on the plane. But you can imagine I was pretty tired while waiting to board my flight in Istanbul.
I pulled out my boarding passes and prepared to board. For the second time in my life I was denied boarding. I explained that I was just staying in the airport. Here my 9 month old baby would be taking a domestic flight in Europe because our flight to the US landed in Iceland, so he didn’t have permission to fly! This is when the story really gets bad. Turkish Airlines was horrible at the Istanbul airport. They were not willing to help me at all. We have frequent flier miles with them that they were not willing to help me use. $1000 for a new ticket direct to the US was the only option they were giving to me. I asked other Turkish Airline workers to help me. They helped me for a short bit and asked me to sit in a room and wait. About a hour later a woman came in and said why are you sitting in here? I said that people are helping me. She said, “There has been a shift change. They have left. No one is going to help you.” I ended up buying a new ticket for $750 because it was to NYC. My family had been helping me to look for tickets online and they had suggested this flight. I had to wait in line to buy it and I saw the many other distressed people whom Turkish Airlines had no sympathy or help for. One man had cash but needed to pay in US dollars. They suggested he change his money. He found out they gave him such a bad rate that he then wouldn’t have enough money. I found myself praying for all these people around me with terrible situations.
Monday morning I went to the French embassy. I was the first person in line. They saw me early. I was the odd woman in the embassy who speaks only the native language and no French. I had all the paperwork in order. We had to wake Easy Teasy up for his picture, which he then cried for and I even felt like I bonded a little with the woman who had been so curt and mean with me in the past. She said maybe the visa would come through by the end of the day. 5pm I returned to the embassy. They had not heard approval from France. There would be no visa. I would spend 3 days in the Paris airport with a 9 month old baby.
Of course I had no chance of sleeping before the 3am flight out of Niamey. I did manage to sleep a couple hours while holding my sleeping baby on the plane. But you can imagine I was pretty tired while waiting to board my flight in Istanbul.
I pulled out my boarding passes and prepared to board. For the second time in my life I was denied boarding. I explained that I was just staying in the airport. Here my 9 month old baby would be taking a domestic flight in Europe because our flight to the US landed in Iceland, so he didn’t have permission to fly! This is when the story really gets bad. Turkish Airlines was horrible at the Istanbul airport. They were not willing to help me at all. We have frequent flier miles with them that they were not willing to help me use. $1000 for a new ticket direct to the US was the only option they were giving to me. I asked other Turkish Airline workers to help me. They helped me for a short bit and asked me to sit in a room and wait. About a hour later a woman came in and said why are you sitting in here? I said that people are helping me. She said, “There has been a shift change. They have left. No one is going to help you.” I ended up buying a new ticket for $750 because it was to NYC. My family had been helping me to look for tickets online and they had suggested this flight. I had to wait in line to buy it and I saw the many other distressed people whom Turkish Airlines had no sympathy or help for. One man had cash but needed to pay in US dollars. They suggested he change his money. He found out they gave him such a bad rate that he then wouldn’t have enough money. I found myself praying for all these people around me with terrible situations.
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| ...such a joyous reunion! |
Our friend from the Sahel said he didn’t want to fly through Istanbul because he had such a bad experience there. I now understand why! Finally I got my boarding pass. I asked a police officer which way to the security because I had traveled the hall so many times I was confused where I was. He then decided there was a chance I was trafficking Easy Teasy and I now was involved in a large investigation with the head of airport police and all the undercover cops. I showed all my documentation and explained everything, but it was another delay and I hadn’t gotten word to my parents yet that I was on the flight. My 2 hours of free Istanbul internet had run out, but I knew Turkish airlines did have a phone that they said I could use to call internationally. Then I saw the woman who said nobody was going to help me. She said, “Your gate is very far away, if you want to make your flight you will need to leave now. If you miss your flight, you will need to buy a new ticket.” I was so confused about the time because of all the shuffling. I went quickly to the phone and with trembling hands I punched in the necessary 20 digits of the ticket and then my mom's number. It was busy. I hung up and punched in the 20 digits again and tried my dad’s number and it was busy too. I probably was doing something wrong, but did I have time to do that again? I took off for security running and prayed I could find a sympathetic person to send an email for me. The man at security said I had plenty of time. It turns out the gate was very far away and I did have plenty of time. I was at the gate even before the additional security screening for flights to the US were there. In fact, one of the security people saw Easy Teasy and asked to take a picture to send to his girlfriend because he was so cute. I asked him if I could use his phone to send an email. He allowed me to for a short time because he had to get back to work. My parents received an email from an unknown Turkish man's name with at least one spelling mistake because I was typing on a Turkish phone keyboard.
How long had I been holding this 18 lb baby and my two bags? I was exhausted and my left bicep felt like it was going to fall off. But I was at the gate. A new question, would I be able to board? This was a new experience for me – denied boarding twice! Would my parents understand my message and know to come pick me up? No. Yes and yes. I was so relieved to be picked up by my parents at JFK. Now they were in charge.
How long had I been holding this 18 lb baby and my two bags? I was exhausted and my left bicep felt like it was going to fall off. But I was at the gate. A new question, would I be able to board? This was a new experience for me – denied boarding twice! Would my parents understand my message and know to come pick me up? No. Yes and yes. I was so relieved to be picked up by my parents at JFK. Now they were in charge.
Sadly, I know this is only one area where my boys will be put in a different category. I know in life they will have extra hardships because of the color of their skin. But I also know that we can work on passing on to them perseverance to get through the difficulties. And all work on the small things we do can to change this world and give the people we meet more grace.
-- La Maestra
-- La Maestra
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