Evacuation (Part II.)

For a variety of reasons, I did not sleep the night before my departure. My packing, that was done entirely the night before as well, was haphazard and stressful. It soon became evident that I was not going to fit everything, so there were a few items that I had to leave behind.

My driver, a young and bearded Venezuelan man, Miguel, arrived at my apartment at 8AM sharp. I put on my legally mandated mask, but I also put on gloves for extra protection. I am so thankful I was able to secure Miguel as a driver at such short notice. (All the credit goes to my Venezuelan friends in Buenos Aires who were able to easily tap into their vast network of fellow expats to help me out. I will be forever grateful for their support and I will be back to visit them one day when this is all over).

The military checkpoint on the edge of the province was clearly overhyped. Despite the various letters of permission I secured from the embassy, my driver was the only one questioned. The situation in the airport was a completely different story. As I reached the main entrance, I turned around to pay my driver. When I turned back around, I was ambushed by a man in a full hazmat suit who lifted a thermometer gun up to my forehead. He pulled back the gun after one second, examined the results and paused. I gave him a puzzled look. He motioned that I could walk forward. I let out a restrained sigh of relief.

The airport was completely empty aside from the roughly 200 passengers that were on my flight. Everyone donned various types of masks and personal protection equipment as airport staff verified our American passports.

Sleep deprived and anxiously curious, I struck up a few conversations with the people next to me in line. The woman in front of me told me that she had to travel nine hours the previous night in order to make the flight. She was lucky enough to have secured a driver who knew how to avoid the most stringent military checkpoints so they would get to the airport on time. She told me that many others were not as lucky and they had to cancel their flights. (I myself was only able to get a ticket because one of these individuals cancelled and I was able to purchase their seat).

Behind me was a family of four. The parents were dual citizens, but the twin boys (around 10 years old) only had American citizenship. They were headed to Washington D.C. where they have a second residence. I had a brief conversation with the mother, but following its conclusion, I could not stop staring at them. Their personal protection equipment looked like it came out of a science fiction film. When one of her boys wanted to take off his gloves, the mother tenderly showed her son the safe way to do so.

I had been physically cut off from most of the world for the last month, and in that time a new normal had arisen. I began to look around the airport at all the children who now donned masks and were being taught to be afraid of the world. There were children as young as two years old wearing masks and running around the semi-closed airport. Some of them were playing and laughing while others solemnly clung to their parents’ legs.

We were supposed to depart at 12PM, but given the nature of the health screenings and social distancing procedures, boarding began after 12PM. As I got into my seat, all I felt was exhaustion and anxiety about the remainder of my trip. I groaned when I found out that our take off was delayed until 2PM as we had to wait for a signed letter to be hand delivered to our airplane so the U.S. government would permit our plane to land in Miami as planned.

When the plane accelerated and our wheels finally lifted off the ground, everyone in the plane clapped and cheered. I sat motionless looking out the window as the palm trees evaporated into the distance. It was only then that the reality of the situation sunk in. I cried. I have no idea when I can return to Argentina and there is no certainty that everyone I care about there will be okay: physically, emotionally, or financially.

For the first leg of the trip, I was paralyzed by an onslaught of negative thoughts. It felt like a corkscrew spiraling into me that was digging to my deepest insecurities. I knew I was going to be unable to concentrate and read the books I brought with me, so I listened to some music to calm myself down. As the night approached, my lack of sleep started to catch up with me. My head drooped and my eyes slowly shut.

My slumber lasted for no longer than an hour as a nearby toddler started wailing. I looked towards my right and saw a young mother with three children: two boys roughly aged 4 and 5, and a girl no more than three years of age with a pink bow on her head. The way that blonde family dressed spoke volumes. They were all immaculately dressed and the mother’s red lipstick was a surprising addition considering so many people were unable to make the flight more or less apply makeup.

As time passed, all three of the children took turns crying and shrieking. I looked in my bag for Advil to no avail. I wished I could scream too. I kept looking over at the family with contempt as the children refused to listen to their mother and only responded in high pitched shrieks in a mix of Spanish and English. I became so frustrated that I began strategizing how to ask her to shut her kids up in Spanish. In my head, I assembled this poorly constructed sentence, “disculpe, señora, sus hijos están gritando y yo no dormí en dos días. Por favor.” (Excuse me ma’am, your children are screaming and I haven’t slept in two days. Please).

I resolved to complain to one of the flight attendants. The flight attendant talked to the mother, but nothing resulted from it. When the next flight attendant walked by, I asked for a bottle of wine. She explained to me that there was no wine on the flight, but that she would get me some beer. I looked over at the two boys and they were now hitting each other with toys as the mother tried to get her youngest to stop screaming. The flight attendant delivered me two cans of beers that I subsequently downed.

The children did not stop screaming, but the beer helped me re-examine the situation from a different perspective. During a walk towards the bathroom later during that flight, I took stock of all the children on the flight. Some of them were with both their parents while others were just with their mothers. As I sat back down in my seat, I noticed the young mother near me had a ring on her finger.

I began to imagine all the possible scenarios of why the blonde family of three was on the flight, but only one of them really stuck with me. I imagined the children and the mother packing their bags in their home and the conversation the mother may have had with her young daughter:

Mother: Remember to wear your mask at all times when we are at the airport. We are leaving in five minutes.

Daughter: I don’t want to. I hate the way it feels.

Mother: You have to wear it, otherwise you could get really sick.

Daughter: What about daddy? When is he coming?

Mother: Daddy is working far away right now and he can’t make the flight.

Daughter: When will daddy be coming to America with us? Will he take a flight tomorrow?

Mother: No, there are no more...no...not tomorrow, but sometime soon...

Under her breath she adds: “I hope.”

The flight attendant came back to check on me and I asked about how many children she had seen on flights lately. She casually replied that this was one of the quieter flights. My heart sank. I suddenly became acutely aware of the other screaming children farther away from me. My thoughts started to spiral out of control yet again: When would these families be reunited? Or more tragically, will all these families be reunited again? I asked for more beer which helped me drift off to sleep for the rest of the flight.

Security to enter the U.S. was a breeze. There were no medical checks and no mandates that we self quarantine upon arrival. I can only hope that no one on our flight was sick. I looked at the list of departures and I saw that nearly all flights that day in Miami had been cancelled.

I walked through the airport looking for a representative from American Airlines to tell me if my flight to North Carolina the following morning was cancelled or not. The airport was absolutely deserted with a lone Subway restaurant being the only food vendor at the time. I had to switch out my Argentine SIM card for my American one to access the internet so I could confirm that my flight was still on. With that information, I figured that it was now time to find a comfortable spot on the floor to sleep until morning. Just by a stroke of luck, I stumbled upon a hotel that was located inside the airport that had cheap accommodations. I booked a room and was able to get five hours of sleep.

The flight to North Carolina took off with little problems. Miami International Airport was only mildly busy in the morning and my flight was half full.

When I arrived in North Carolina on the afternoon of April 30th, I was greeted by my old high school friend Jordan. I was so glad to see him, but I was also starving. I asked if we could get some good old classic greasy American food and he obliged. We went to Bojangles’ and I got a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit sandwich with a side of mac and cheese and mash potatoes and gravy. I was finally back home.