Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Garen got our tickets immediately. We had three days left in the country. Our hotel was extensive with several restaurants, a pool, large yards to run around in. Small shops to buy snacks and trinkets. We could do three days on the property no problem. One of the workers there told us not to wear yellow and to go hide in our rooms if we saw any soldiers come on to the property.

Timos was up so early on the day we were going home. That was unfortunate because our flight didn’t leave until about ten o’clock that night. He insisted on showering and getting dressed and then we just had to wait through the longest day I have ever lived.

That waiting was exhausting. It was physically painful. It was emotionally charged. But there was no way around it. Just through it.

Finally, our car was being loaded with our luggage. So much luggage that I would have to manage by myself. All while trying to soothe a terrified four-year-old. Timos had never seen a plane. He was horrified at the prospect of flying in the air. But he was determined. It was the only way to get to his Daddy. His brothers. His America.

The international airport in Entebbe did not allow anyone in until two hours before their flight. So, our driver unloaded our bags, put them on a trolley and told us goodbye. I gave him my Ugandan cell phone to donate to another family coming after us to adopt. It would literally be of no use to me anywhere else. He got in his car and suddenly Timos and I were all alone in a large crowd of people.

It was dark. We were surrounded by a complex song of different languages. The hour was growing late. Timos was incredibly tired so I put him up on the stack of suitcases on the trolley where he could rest. After about an hour and a half it was our turn to enter the airport.

It took us FOREVER to get through security. Finally through, I got our luggage checked in. That felt SO much better. I just had a carry-on, the laptop computer, and Timos. We shuffled wearily to the long line for emigration.

When we stepped up to the border guard, I handed him my bundle of paperwork. Everything I had been instructed to give him. He opened it, froze, and then slowly raised his eyes to look at me.

He was a big man. Even sitting, he was imposing. His eyes were so hard and so cruel, and I knew in a second that I was in trouble.

In this deep, gravelly voice he demanded an extra passport photo of Timos. I pasted on my please-help-me smile and told him the Passport had a photo on it. Why did he need a second one? For the first time in Uganda that smile failed me. It angered the guard, and he began to shout at me for a photo. I told him I didn’t HAVE an extra photo, that no one had told me I needed one. Enraged he yelled that was not his problem and told me to leave. I asked him where I was supposed to go but he was standing up now, screaming at me to leave, pointing to the person behind me in line and ordering them to come forward.

That poor kid. It was some young, white, European guy who had the most agonized look on his face. He did NOT want to move forward and displace me and my tiny, frightened son. But you don’t disobey the guards, the police, the soldiers. You just don’t.

I stepped out of line, so he didn’t have to take responsibility for a revolting decision. I grasped Timos’ clammy little hand and slowly turned around. The line literally parted right down the middle. Hundreds of panicked faces staring at us, feeling helpless, wanting to help us and at the same time wondering if THEY will be denied exit. They all heard what was going on.

Timos was pulling heavily on my hand, repeating, “What’s going on Mommy? Why won’t he let us leave? Why are we going away Mommy? Mommy!” The strangest feeling of heaviness settled over my eyes, my ears, my brain, my muscles. I had no cell phone so I couldn’t call any of our Ugandan contacts. I literally had no idea what to do. I began to calmly tell Timos that I didn’t know what was going on, but that everything was going to be okay, I would fix it, he could trust me.

We slowly walked through the strange, terrifying corridor of silent people. So many actually reached out to gently touch my arm as I walked by. Coming through I was suddenly galvanized by absolute panic. We had to get out of the country.

I went back to the airline desk and told them what had just happened. They were shocked and walked me back to the guard. He yelled at them that he would not let me leave without that photo. She told me she had never heard of this happening before, then told me that maybe I could get a driver and go get a 1-hour passport photo.

I picked Timos up and ran through security and out of the airport. That didn’t go over well with the guards who caught up with me outside. At this point I was babbling almost incoherently. An elderly porter somehow, miraculously understood me. He spoke to the guards and got them to go back inside. And then he called up a young taxi driver and quickly explained to him what was going on.

I was tucked into the backseat of the taxi with Timos, and the driver, barely older than my oldest son took off to find a passport photo shop. Barreling down the dark airport drive we could see the brilliant glow of the city in the distance. And then, we watched as all the lights blinked off. There was a citywide blackout.

You would think that would slow down my driver, but in his youthful confidence I’m pretty sure he sped up. Beyond frightening to fly down dark streets with visibility only as far as the headlights can reach. We pulled up to a pitch-black storefront. Our driver, I wish I could remember his name, jumped out of the car, and began to bang on the door of the photo shop. The owner told him they had no generator and could not help us. Back in the car, rushing to another passport photo shop. They could not help us. Neither could the third store. Neither could the fourth.

Timos was crying hysterically, begging me to let him go to America. Begging me to tell him why we can’t leave. I am alternating conversations. “Please God, get us out of this country. Please get us home. Please God.” “It’s okay love. Trust me. I’ll get us home. Everything is going to be okay.” “Oh Jesus. Help us. Help us.” “Mommy is here love. Everything is going to be okay.” In a moment of the loneliest despair my heart sought Jesus. Begged God.

Then the young man in the front seat makes a phone call and suddenly the car turns into a brightly lit slum and my heart freezes in my chest.

Going from the dark, quiet streets to the discordant cacophony of color and sound of the slum was almost too much for my flooded senses. There were young men waving guns, prostitutes shouting to potential clients, women cooking in large pots hung over fires, men sitting on makeshift stools silently watching the goings-on. The slums were illegally placed. They weren’t on the electrical grid, so they had generators and were unaffected by blackouts.

In that moment, I realized that there was not a single soul in the world that knew where we were. Garen thought Timos and I were on the plane awaiting take-off. Absolutely no one knew we were being taken deep into a slum in Entebbe, Uganda. If something happened to us, all anyone would ever know is that our luggage made it to America, but we didn’t. I was so scared.

Suddenly the car stopped and Timos door was jerked open by another young man who pulled him from the car and took off into a shack smaller than my closet back home. I was out of the car, running after him, screaming at him to stop. I burst through the door, much to the merriment of the three young men inside the glamour shot studio, who already had Timos on a stool, posing him for the photo.

One of the young men quietly suggests it might be better if Timos were not allowed to leave the country. The three other young men shush him and continue to help us.

I silently hand them Timos’ passport, at this point I am almost non-verbal, and they study his photo to pose him perfectly. Luckily, he is wearing the same shirt as in his passport. They took the picture, sized it, and cropped it perfectly. It looked identical. I handed them $100 and got back in the car.

I asked our driver if we had time to get back to the airport. He didn’t even answer and the look on his face didn’t instill confidence that we could. We had twenty minutes until our flight took off.

When we pull up to the front door of the airport, I shove $100 into the driver’s hand, pick Timos up and run for security. We rush through and run to the airline counter. The clerks’ eyes got big when she saw us coming. She came and ran with us to emigration, which was empty now. The guard was not happy when I shoved the photo through the window with the rest of our paperwork, but he stamped Timos’ passport. Then he slowly said he wanted a passport photo of ME and that is the moment that I lost my mind.

I began to yell at this man that I was an American citizen and that he could not do this to me and that he had better stamp my passport, NOW! To my utter disbelief, he did. Suddenly we were on the other side of the yellow line on the floor. We were almost free. The airline employee is running with us to get us on the plane when suddenly she stops and just looks at me. She tells me she is thirsty and the least I could do was buy her something to drink. That is code for pay me. I sigh and hand her $100. The last cash I had. I didn’t even care about the 24-hour journey home with no money. I just wanted on that plane.

She took me through the locked gate and got me on the walkway to the plane. It took a moment for her to do her magic and I sank to my knees, put my arms around a quiet and stunned Timos, and wept.

The door to the plane opens and we walk down the aisle as everyone stared, not able to believe they were seeing us again. On the way to our seats people reached out and told me they had been praying for us, telling us how glad they were to see us, letting me know how relieved they were we made the flight. I didn’t look a single one of them in the eye. I couldn’t. I just gave the tiniest nod and kept walking to our seats.

That flight was the last one out until after the Presidential elections. All flights grounded indefinitely. And even though it never made the news here, there were personal reports that white people were indeed being shot.

That was the most frightened I have ever been in my life. Easily the worst night of my life.

Easily another miracle. The enemy clearly did not want Timos leaving that country. God made sure we did.