Our October Story

I've found myself telling our story a few times lately, and it occurs to me that I never posted it here.  I posted the reasons we were kicked out of Venezuela here, but I finished that post with the promise to tell the rest of the story another time.  And so, as I begin placing my head firmly in Indonesia, I will first share the end of our time in Caracas.

Feel free to refresh yourself above on the occurrences leading up to that Monday afternoon, but suffice it to say that Dave had been traveling the week before on official business.  We were just coming off of a relaxing, family-filled weekend and everyone was back into our normal 8-5 routine again.  Dave was at work, the girls were at school, and Annika and I were at home.  At 4:00, just as I was watching out our window for the bus to drive up the street with Sophia on board (Lilly was staying after school), Dave called.

When I answered, I took the phone to the window to watch for the bus.  He asked if I was sitting down.  This seemed awfully dramatic for Dave, and I was ready for Sophia's bus to arrive any minute, so I told him to stop being silly and get to the point.

We've been PNGed, he said.

Persona Non Grata is a person who is not welcome in a country by that country's government.  This had happened to another family a few months prior, so PNG was common terminology in our circles.  I laughed it off, and asked why he was really calling.

This went on for some time, Dave telling me he was serious in a rather shaky voice and me laughingly not believing him.  Now, as it happens, he had called on the house phone.  My cell phone was sitting on the table next to me.  As he assures me this is no joke, my cell phone buzzes.  Erin, a friend at the embassy, has just texted something akin to OMG!  I just heard!  Are you okay?  This is crazy!

Now, Dave is no prankster.  It was possible that he could fake me out on something, but he is not the type to enlist others in a prank.  Wait, as I stared at the phone, are you serious?

That's when I saw the bus.

As I stepped into the elevator to go downstairs, my phone began ringing again.  Being in the elevator, I couldn't answer.  I picked up Sophia and she and Annika and I went into the back garden for them to run around and blow off some after-school energy.  Within minutes, Anne was at the gate.  When I didn't answer the phone, she simply walked over.  She sat with me for an hour while the little girls swam in the pool and we waited for both Lilly and Dave to come home.

I remember this as an almost eerie calm before the storm.  Although I knew that I had more to do over the next 48 hours than would be humanly possible, it also seemed clear to me that at that moment it was important to allow Sophia and Annika to swim and play.

Anne left with the promise to help any way she could.  Dave and Lilly got home, and we quickly took Anne up on her offer.  We walked all three of the girls to their house for a surprise dinner date.  As Anne and Jesse are favorites of everyone in our family, this idea went over gangbusters and Dave and I easily disappeared back to our apartment to begin putting our heads in order.

Honestly, I'm not sure what we did with those hours.  But when the girls came back at 8:30 - their normal bedtime - our heads were in a better place and we were ready to break the crazy news to them.  We told them that the president of Venezuela had asked us to leave, and that tomorrow would be their last day of school.  Lilly bawled - the poor girl had struggled to feel comfortable at school in Caracas, and to quit now for another new school seemed like too much for her to handle.  Sophia felt excited about the airplane, and Annika felt excited about the hotel.  The younger two went to sleep looking forward to a great adventure.  Lilly didn't go to sleep at all.

The next day was simply amazing.  Lilly and Sophia went to school.  I had emailed both of their teachers about the situation, and they worked magic.  Each class had a farewell party with snacks and parting gifts.  Their classmates signed their uniform shirts and put together books with a message from every child.  They finished their day feeling valued and all smiles.  Dave spent much of the day at the embassy, quickly cleaning out of his desk, handing off projects to others, and setting in motion all sorts of projects which would have to be carried out by others.  Projects like having flights for future vacations cancelled and arranging for shipments.  He managed to sell our car within the day, which was an amazing blessing for us (but not yet a blessing for the family who bought it).

And I began packing.  Jeannine, another friend, had emailed me the night before with a schedule.  Friends had signed up for 2 hour shifts all through the day, and they began showing up at 9am with food.  Helpers stayed until midnight that night.  One gal picked up Annika and kept her until our Farewell Party late that afternoon.  Everyone else simply broke down the house.  We designated rooms for different items.  Everything in our master bedroom would be packed and carried with us to America.  Everything in Annika's room would be packed into an air shipment and sent to us as soon as possible (we received it in December).  Everything in the guest room would be packed into a sea shipment and meet us at our next post (we expect to see it around October of this coming year).  And everything else would be sold.  There was a lot of moving things in and out of rooms, and up and down stairs.  A lot of laundry to be quickly done, and folded and piled into the master bedroom for luggage.  A lot of toys needed to be organized and pricing needed to be discussed.  And a lot of hard decisions needed to be made very quickly - do you want to keep this?  what about this?  are you sure?

We broke around 3:00 to pick up the girls from school and say farewell to an amazing staff and faculty.  As a family, we headed to the embassy for a Farewell Happy Hour, and then we dropped all three girls with two family friends from church.  Once we got back home, we put the girls to bed and told our volunteer helpers to go home.  Anything left would have to go undone.  Much to their credit and to our very good luck, they refused to leave.  Jeannine and Grisel packed our bags late into the night, while we were still up backing up the computer and snatching old family videos from the Sell pile.

Dave and I spent about 3 hours in bed that night before heading to the airport the next morning.  And here is the next amazing part of our story.  At this time, flights could not be bought out of Caracas at a moment's notice.  One of the surprising aspects of the current economic system is that it can be very difficult to get a flight out of Venezuela.  But United found 9 seats on the first flight out of town that morning, and although they didn't bump us to Business Class they did give us access to the Admirals Club, where our overtired and highly stressed children had the privilege of disturbing many a quiet businessman from his morning newspaper.

Our day as superstars continued when we landed in - golly, I have no idea where we laid over.  But when we left the plane, officers from Homeland Security were waiting to escort us to our next flight.  They did this as a courtesy, and it was lovely.  They carried our luggage, they moved us to the front of every line, and they chatted with us through the airport.  Had we been there on a high travel day, it would have been particularly exciting.  But even on a quiet day, we appreciated the help and the gesture.

We landed in DC and were met by someone from the Andean desk at the State Department.  He and his son very graciously carried our bags and our sleepy children to a hotel just down the street from the Main State Department offices.  Where we slept.

It must have been 9:00 when we arrived, if not later.  As it always does, it took quite a while to get our bags and our children into our room and into suitable sleeping attire and into suitable sleeping places.  And by the time all of that was done, we were all exhausted.  And we all slept.