Sailing Faith: The Long Way Home

Emily and Amanda with friends at an Easter Service in Massawa, Eritrea

This is the fourth of a six part series, to be uploaded daily. -Gregg

Meanwhile, back in Eritrea, Werner from Legend II is helping Emily get things in shape to move Faith up the Red Sea.

I have been doing it since we started, and I have my own bandaids on things to keep them running without purchasing original parts, especially on the generator, where I have the fuel valve connected to the plunger with a cable tie, among other things.  While I’m in Cairo, and Werner’s working on Faith with Emily, I’m not all that comfortable about him seeing my fixes.  I’m convinced that Werner, and everybody else for that matter, has their own collection of bandaids, but it’s just not something we talk about all that much.  Werner helps Emily perform a lot of maintenance on Faith, and nicknames her ‘Grease Monkey.’

The longer I’m in Cairo, the more difficult things become in Eritrea, but the more blessings are provided at the same time.  Lorrie’s money is running out.  On hearing this, a French man sailing to Asia, who could never expect to see us again, hands Lorrie $200, saying, “With what you’ve got going on, anybody would do that.”

A boat in the anchorage is broke-into while the owners are sleeping and they lose a camera, and binoculars, among other things.  This, by the way, is the definition of piracy.  The officials are, with exception, making life difficult, and Lorrie has a tough time dealing with everything.  Food is scarce – the main staple being cabbage.  Cabbage soup, casserole, stew.   They can’t buy eggs, or even a chicken.

They’re going through a scary period, in a scary place, and they’re doing the best they know how.  They aren’t eating because there’s nothing to eat.  I’m not eating because I’m a thousand miles away and sick.

After two nights, I know I’m getting better, and will be released someday.  I ask Dr. Ghonemy if I can take a taxi downtown to buy the Lonely Planet, so I can make arrangements for a room when he does release me.  That afternoon, I leave the hospital.  I walk around one city block, and buy the guidebook.  It does me in.  At the end of my brief tour, I end up at a McDonald’s and eat a small hamburger and fries, a regular feast after not eating for over a week.  The trouble is that I’m so worn out that I need the manager of McDonalds to get me a cab, and help me get in, so I can go back to the hospital.

The next day, Dr. Ghonemy holds out the hope of me being released, but has reservations about my ability to rest.  He needs assurance that I won’t be touring the Pyramids or Museum; that I will rest.  I have no interest in seeing the pyramids without my family, and never have an interest in museums, even with my family, and tell him so.  He releases me and all I have left to do is to pay the bill.

I go to the financial office, and am handed the bill.  Three days hospitalization in a private room, doctors fees, drugs, lab, x-ray, ultrasound, even the ambulance from the airport; it’s all there.  This hospital is a privately owned, for-profit hospital, and I don’t qualify for subsidies as I’m not Egyptian.  They make money on me, and I’m billed the equivalent of US$475.00.

When I return to my room to pack the few items I have, there’s a man delivering flowers, a huge bouquet for me from Mama Maggie’s.  I don’t know what Mama Maggie’s is, but the driver explains it’s a mission of Egyptian Christians in Cairo.  I tell him I’m being discharged and he drives me downtown to the hostel where I have a room waiting.

My second floor room that night faces a traffic circle.  The balcony door doesn’t close enough to keep out the mosquitoes, or the sounds of the street below.  Egyptian cars are outfitted with horns that go ‘beep-beep’ rather than ‘honk,’ and get plenty of use.  I don’t sleep well and relocate in the morning.  I explain to the manager about my malaria and why I’m leaving, and he helps me down the street with my flowers and stuff, to a quieter place.

I have medications to continue and I’m supposed to be resting.  I’m in contact with Lorrie on a daily basis and with Mom and Dad on a daily basis and with my brother Gary more than once daily.  Everybody, including me is worried about Lorrie.  Our plan,conjured and put in motion by Lorrie and Kathy, is to have a German guy they found in Langkawi join Lorrie and the kids in Massawa, and sail the boat up the Red Sea to Egypt where I can resume the duties of being captain and father.

When I talk to Dad one afternoon, he says that he’s amazed how fast God provides healing once the corner’s been turned from being sick to getting well.  I’m not sure Dad’s intentions were to inspire, but within an hour, I decide to get back to Eritrea to sail my family up the Red Sea myself.

Knowing that there are two flights to Asmarra each week, one on Wednesday and one on Sunday, each at 1:00am, I’m determined to make this Easter Sunday’s Flight.  The fact that I’m determined doesn’t make it so as I find out on Good Friday when I go to the Eritrean Embassy for a visa.  The person who welcomes me to the Embassy tells me they write visas on Tuesdays, and invites me back then.  He also tells me that even then, there’s no guarantee.

I’m talking to the US Embassy in Cairo, as well as with Brian from the US Consulate in Asmarra and nobody holds out much hope of a visa to get back by Easter, or ever for that matter.

I learn a little about US Foreign Diplomacy during this time.  Brian tells us that US relations with Eritrea are strained because Eritrea won’t allow the US to carry what is called “diplomatic pouch” in Eritrea.  I don’t know much about it, but I understand from the Tom Clancy novels I’ve read that diplomatic pouch gives a diplomat a corridor to that diplomat’s embassy or consulate inside the foreign country from outside the host country so that documents and other things can be transferred into and out of foreign offices without the host country’s scrutiny.

One element of foreign policy is that it’s a sign of weakness for one country to overlook an insult from the other, so the US Consulate in Eritrea stopped writing visas.  I think the childishness of international relations fuel my difficulties getting home to my family.

During Friday, and through Saturday, I’m in contact with Brian, who offers little hope that the Eritrean Minister of something important will allow my return on the Sunday morning flight.  It doesn’t happen.

To be continued.   Tomorrow, Mama Maggie’s and the Garbage in Cairo