From the families: “Thank you!!”
Thank You For Your Presence
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all the beautiful people who worked determinedly to help ensure that our beloved Gabriel, KTJ, Jeremiah and Joshua could make it back home safely.
On Saturday, February 2, Javi received a call from his brother Gabriel, a few minutes after surviving the gun battle in the hotel. Gabe’s last words before his phone went dead were: “it’s starting to get dark…I don’t know if we’ll make it out if we’re still here when night falls.”
Their last few days in Chad were some of the scariest days our families have ever lived. Those days also had the potential of being as dark as a night in Chad. However, whatever darkness existed was overpowered by the Light of your presence.
You brought us hope and strength with every strategic action you took up to make sure their evacuation became a top priority for the authorities involved. Every phone call to the Embassy, State Department and Congress; every call to the media; every entry on the blog; every e-mail to coordinate the next plan of action, conveyed a prevailing sense of hope and strength.
Most important of all, it was all your prayers and positive thoughts, or more appropriately said, your love that served as our companion as we journeyed the fearful terrain of uncertainty.
The most common message entered on the blog was “we are with you”. Your presence is the greatest gift we could ever receive. For this we will carry you in our hearts forever.
Sincerely,
Families of KTJ, Gabriel, Joshua and Jeremiah.
In Los Angeles…thinking about Chad and Darfur (Feb 8, 08)
Hi friends and familia:
This is just a short note to let you know we are back home. I always felt connected to home and to safety thanks to all of your support in messages, prayers, thoughts, and actions. I feel lucky and privileged to have a huge, loving community around me. You are very much loved. I am going to go outside and play with Gabo now. He looks bigger than when I left for Chad. It’s almost his fifth birthday! Please help me support in messages, prayers, thoughts, and–most importantly–action the people of Chad and Darfur. Many fathers are dead because of the violence in the region. Many of the fathers that are alive cannot go outside and play with their sons.
Paz,
Gabriel
g’s Journal—last from Africa
5 February 2008
According to plans, I would have been home three days ago. I know that I must have sounded redundant and boring when telling my three travel partners that many time, if not always, things just do not go as planed in Chad. This journey has taken this notion to the extreme. Clichés are what work best here to explain the attitude that is needed in these conditions: gotta go with the flow; gotta take the good with the bad; and gotta roll with punches. When bullets were flying, I also used “here and now; here and now; here and now,” to stay focused and thinking about what was the best next move. Many of these sayings did not work in many occasions during the last more than three weeks, and they malfunctioned even more in the last three days.
Today, our flight was maybe leaving at 2pm. Now it is maybe leaving at 2am tomorrow. Gotta roll with the punches.
On February 2, just three days ago, it was so surreal and so completely outside of anything I feel as normal to be lying on the floor to avoid real bullets flying through the room we were in. But, sparks of normality still manage to flash through even in those moments. “Here and now” would keep me focused, and then, in an instant, “here and now” would be displaced by “these men are going to come in to the hotel and fight it out with the French soldiers. How am I going to react?” I would quickly have to switch to, “stay low and move fast!”
Libreville feels so different from Chad, but loud noises still make me pause. I am laughing with KTJ, Jeremiah, and Josh. It can be so normal, but then it is not. You would think that, after going through the last few days in Chad, I would want to think of everything but Chad, but Chad, its people, and the people of Darfur is what I keep going back to. It always gets mixed up with thoughts of my family, friends, and all that I’ve been feeling love from. I just cannot help but thinking in terms of that other cliché, “If it was my family going through these horrors in Chad/Darfur, I would want to know that someone out there is thinking of me and wanting to help.”
So, I’m not sure what way the flow is going, but I’m going with it. I’ll be doing some paddling to give myself some direction. You can be sure of that. I said above that this would be my last post from Africa, but Africa might still have something to say about that.
I do love you all, and I can’t wait to see as many of you as possible.
Paz,
Gabriel
Out of Africa (almost)
05 Feb 08 – Morning in Libreville
The clouds roll in heavy over the ocean and reach the base with a scattered thunder. The sounds of Gabon, including drumming last night, are refreshing after the sounds of war. We are waiting for our flight to Paris, then to LA. For my sisters and brothers in Portland, I will be home on the 12th (anyone up for an airport run and a Maker’s & ginger?).
My emotions have been all over the place the last few days and I cannot help but think about what it all would be like if I had been walking for 10 days with several kids, a few of which might need to nursed, with no military biscuits or bottled water. Every time something in me shifts, from emotions of anxiety to calmness, to annoyance, to fear to feeling loved and supported by all of you, I cannot help but think how much more they are amplified for the refugees, and how consistent they have been for five years.
Waiting in line in the mess hall for mystery meat encrusted in something yellow…the first food distribution with crowds willing to trample one another to reach a grain for the family. Waiting, waiting and waiting for help from other people…Adam and Fatna echoed one another’s frustration with the international community and begged for more help. I am lucky enough to have regular internet connection to you…but for our friends in the camps, the connection to the outside world mostly consists of aid workers and SGN visiting the camps. Feeling my community through words and emails…remembering the numerous “Shookraan” (thank you’s) we received from refugees after we passed on your words and emotions to them.
It’s been rather hard to find a place to recharge here on base, but once we did, I had a chance to read all of your comments. And I am overwhelmed by the movement that has been formed and momentum we have created, you have created, as a community. I feel your words in my heart and I long for a hug from many of you. Especially my mom and those of you in Portland, who are too many to name here, who have always supported me in anything I have done and who I know will be waiting for my return once I leave LA.
Thank you again for all your support and action that you have produced around the world, our community has grown significantly because of you.
The rain here as stopped for the moment and we are checking on flights. It’s 9am and there hasn’t been much movement outside in the large field where registration tents have been set up for the past few days. In the lounge we were taken to find electricity, we are watching “Little Miss Sunshine,” albeit in French, which makes me laugh and remember home. We will keep everyone updated on our progress and we will see you soon.
A special note to Mimi, Gabo, Irais, and Zahara: I am sorry that my words in my last entry upset you. I know that Gabriel is in a very different situation than myself. And the SGN team will think very carefully about what our next moves will be. Again, I am sorry that they affected you the way they did, please accept my apologies.
PS: I am grounded anyways, in LA and in Portland!
Photos – Evacuated from Chad to Gabon
Team Current location: Libreville, Gabon.
More photos at our flickr site.
4 Feb 08 – Evacuated from Chad to Gabon
Attention
Before leaving California to embark on this journey (and that’s the word that most fits for my trips out to the refugee camps–journey), I told others on the on-the-ground team that it would be a life-changing experience. I could never have thought it would reach this level of gut, mind, heart, and soul shaking that this journey turned in to. Visiting the refugee camps in Eastern Chad is such a full, unforgettable experience! Walking with children, all of whom have experienced horrors much worse than our two days war, moves you and shakes you enough to never being able to not think about them again.
Being present and reporting during the N’Djamena fighting has brought us unprecedented exposure. We have been speaking with major news organization from all around the world. It gives us a great opportunity to speak about Darfur and the need for peace in that warn-torn region. I want the press to continue approaching us.
The story from the capital of Chad is very important. Four Americans in danger during forty-eight hours is an interesting side story. Millions of people in grave and continuous danger for over five years, is that enough of a story for the world to stop and look in on Darfur?
Paz,Gabriel
ps. Thanks for all the support. You are amazing! We are now in Libreville, Gabon, spending one more night in Africa but in no danger.
4 Feb 08 – at French Military Base
In all the chaos, I have forgotten to take my malaria pills a few times on this trip. But tonight, as we wait outside of the registration office, at the French Military Base lit by a single fluorescent bulb, I remember to take it. This is the worst the mosquitoes have been on the entire trip. A female soldier stands tall on a make shift stool shouting names for the next flight. It’s 9:40pm and the last flight left at 6:40. They finish calling three pages of names. Although Miah (known back home as Jeremiah) thinks that each names is Forest with a French accent, we don’t make the list. They bring coffee, we wait, the mosquitoes feast.
Hours pass by and even those who were called at 9:40 linger in the area. The military transport truck holding the luggage hasn’t moved in hours. Just as news about the fighting is sporadic and unreliable so is news about flights out of here. We hear rumors: one airplane of the two is broken down, they are delaying the other flight due to fighting, the rebels are asking the French to suspend all flights and keep the airport neutral or they will think its an act of war. We shut everything down and I make my way to the kitchen area to plug in the computer, all batteries are down to less than 10 minutes. A soldier tries to tell me that I can’t plug in here, and I ask him to say it in English; with a discouraging shrug he walks away and I plug in!
The same officer stands again above the rest of us. Calling the same names, it looks like a flight will make it out tonight but we won’t be on it. The transport truck returns from the airport drop off and soldiers begin loading the remaining luggage. I reflect about all the things I left back in the hotel: the flip flops I have had since I lived in North Carolina almost 9 years ago; one of my Thai wraps; my zip off pants from Vietnam; Mansur’s t-shirt; and my backpack, another item I have lived out of in many countries and used for over 10 years now. I did gather my special bag of gifts that people have given me for protection and strength. Miah and Gabriel now have a few of these things, the rest are still tucked in my pockets. In Shallah, the luggage will be there when we return. These are just things, I have my life and my memories.
People begin to gather again, this time around a male officer. “Scott, KATie…Jay, Scott.”
“Oui, ici, present!”
“Stauring, Sundberg, Forest!”
We shuffle into the white vans. The hour reaches 1:00am but we are all relived not to be outside anymore. One minute, two minutes, three minutes, we stop. Gabriel jokes, “It’s like the N’Djamena International Airport.” I laugh, oh wait, people are getting out. I think to myself, we’ve got to stop saying this stuff out loud. A moment of reflection, how many times we have stated something in the last three weeks that has then come true, Law of Attraction. The rollercoaster started when I said in the car from Farchana to Abeche, “You wouldn’t want to be out here without a working horn in your car….” Moments later, we approached a herd of cattle and Alpha attempted to honk to move them from our way, nothing sounded.
We are dropped off at a line of green army tents with cots, some with mosquito nets propped above them, others empty. We grab a few with nets, exchange looks, and shoot up one more update; tonight will be more restful, maybe.
We wake to a typical sunny morning. We meet those who have arrived from the Embassy, “ahhh! This is Le Meridien Four.” They know us because of all of you! There is a station for brushing teeth and even a quick shower. I take my time with the cold water, skipping the hot, letting it run through my hair and wash away the plaster still stuck from the gunfire two days ago. Once out in a clean shirt, I am hurried to a new registration point and given a quarter of a pink construction sheet with the number 11 – our flight number, but to make sure we are clear, not the time we are leaving!
As we wait under a tree on the military base, we can still here heavy fighting in the distance, but everyone is calm. We joke around with others from the hotel who have made it onto flight 11 out of N’Djamena. Many new faces also, who are eager to watch the videos from our days in the hotel. We meet a few other American’s. And we wait patiently.
Spending the night in N’D
Hello Friends y Familia:
We have not made it out of Chad, but we are in much safer place than the hotel, which was close to being in the middle of the fighting. As stated before, French military personnel extracted us from the hotel and brought us to their military base. It is well protected and at a distance from the main fighting. We have been hearing sporadic fighting in the city, with some heavy artillery at times. Being at this distance, it does not feel as menacing. The memories of the last couple of days are still very vivid, though, so the sounds still cause an impact.
We do not know when we’ll be taken to the airport for evacuation. It is believed that we will first fly to another African nation and from there to France. There has been some fighting around the airport, so that might have something to do with our delay. We are now in military tents to spend the night.
We are not quite out, but closer. We’ll keep you updated as to what’s going on around us. Thanks to all for your great support.
paz,
Gabriel
03 Feb 08
The phones begin to ring, again, finally. Since last night around 10pm there has been no one who could reach us. We received several emails from people letting us know they were trying to get through to us. “Cent sept, 107!” First in French; then again in English.“Here, we are here.”
“Telephone.”
News from the State Department reaches us, the French are mobilizing a convoy, and we are part of the group that will be evacuated. Gather your things and be ready to go within five minutes when they call. I glance at my watch, 1pm. We’ve been ready for four days with our three backpacks of essentials. The wonderful staff who hasn’t stopped smiling brings out plates of food, silverware and napkins fanned out as if serving a formal buffet. Tables are moved back inside from the veranda into the area that had been cleared the night before for sleeping. The heavy curtains still drawn, the overhead emergency light provides the only light.
We go back to our room one more time and glance over the nonessentials we have left. Gabriel tells me to grab the “Humanity for Politics” t-shirt that I was planning on leaving behind. I wore it the very first day in Chad on the way to UNHCR. The picture of me in our friend’s car reminds me of the excitement and determination I had to meet Fatna upon landing in N’Djamena on January 13th. I know we will be back in March, so I am not concerned about leaving most of my belongings behind. We head down to see room 102, which took heavy fire and where a new friend and UN aid worker had been taking a nap when the fire unfolded the previous day. Bullet holes, one the size of a small watermelon, went clear through to the wall and into the shower on the other side. We are lucky no one in the hotel was hurt.
I approach the plates of tomatoes and cucumbers, chicken and mushrooms and rice for one last plate, I hope, before leaving Le Meridien for now. I eat barely anything.
“Cinq Minutes. Cinq minutes.” With relieved hurriedness people begin to gather their luggage. We grab the bgan which has been our primary source of internet and contact with the outside world for the past five days, and the last item we needed to pack. We gather donations for the staff, who have continue to serve us through this all. I hope they are rewarded, as their resiliency is unmatched. I hope Yves, Achta, and Abakar make it home soon and that their families are safe.
Glass crunches under my feet as I walk through the front doors for the first time since before the attack on the hotel. French soldiers have created a line of protection, and have moved the vehicles that had been placed in front of the gate. We pass through and towards the convoy of 10 or so tanks which have lined the street.
Once inside, I am in the front and can get clear footage through the front window of where we are going. My peripheral vision is limited and one of the many soldiers aboard obstructs most of the view with his legs as he rides up top. The streets are deserted. As we turn around and head down the street where two days earlier I had seen a tank, two of the men from the hotel ride off on the motorcycles, using the convoy as protection. I hope they make it home okay. The General Manager of the hotel rides with us and we are grateful for the time we spent at Le Meridien. Ashis’ neighbor has joined us. He describes the hole which has replaced Ashis’ apartment and his business by a rocket. Again, we are lucky that no one we know was hurt.
The nine of us begin to sweat as our ride turns from 10 minutes to 20 until we arrive to pick up others from the Novetell. Beyond a few stops, we arrive safely at what appears to be the French Military Base that others have also been evacuated to. Passports, paperwork, luggage search, medical check, chocolate bar. They don’t tell us much but we hear that we will be flown to Liberia first then either to France or the US after that. Although we can still hear a few gunshots now and then, the pit in my stomach is almost gone and my antsy energy has left me. We are going to be home soon enough.
I want to say thank you to our team, friends and family who have worked tirelessly over the last five days, and also during our entire trip out here to the camps in Eastern Chad. Without your support and notes of love and encouragement, I would have felt alone and forgotten. But I never felt this way through any of the last three weeks, and especially not the last five days. Everything from contacting media to 1:00am conference calls to little notes about coffee and soy milk from my mother have been more than appreciated, more than I can describe in words. I love and thank you.
