Thursday October 27, 2005

12:57am…another sleepless night. There are so many horrible snoring sounds in here that I can’t understand how anyone can sleep through it. Gloria falls asleep now with the earphones and my CD player and the music Damon put on disk for me. I took my Delta headphones from their package and removed the set she still had on her head from the CD player. I carefully plugged in mine, and turned on the music she had placed into the player. The first song was Nora Jones. Then came a song called “Home”. This is a song I love and is one of my favorites. I never thought when I used to listen to it how much it could really mean to me. I finally broke down and cried for the first time. I was very quiet about it and when I was done, I thought I might just finally fall asleep to the last words the artist sang….”I wanna go home”. I could not. So here I sit with my laptop (again) and all these loud snoring men wheezing all around me. I need to get home. I feel myself losing control and I don’t know how I’m going to handle all the things that are happening here. I want to trust someone…anyone. It seems every decision we make is the wrong one. We are just fortunate that we don’t move quickly on any of these decisions and have time to discover what a mistake they are before it’s too late. Only problem is, that as long as we don’t do SOMETHING, we are stuck here with nowhere to go. No one is coming for us. No one is going to take us home and no one of any authority is concerned about us. We are here, lost and alone with little hope of seeing our homes until this country decides to put together a better system of getting us out of here. This could take weeks. Will I still have a job? Will I be able to keep my house? What will my finances be, by the time I return from this “vacation”???? I am stressed beyond anything I have ever dealt with in my lifetime. I am sure now that I will never come back to Mexico, as there is no guarantee I will ever get home. The Cancun airport is in Chaos. There is no rhyme or reason to how they are handling this situation. Boarding passes, paper tickets, itineraries, and seat assignments are worthless. We cannot get out. We cannot get home. We will be forced into a more dangerous shelter than the one we are presently in. I am sick from the mildew smell. There is no escaping it. My head hurts all the time from it now. I fall asleep at night nauseated and wake up with my head pounding in the morning, if I am fortunate enough to get any rest at all. I am so tired. Emotionally, mentally and physically. I hate it here. I must get out and back home. I can’t help but wonder how the kid with Down syndrome is getting along now. He was here with us for 6 days and today they took him and his family to Moon Shelter. What a horrible place for him! We are told by the ones that were there and got away that if we go there, we will be at the bottom of the “totem pole” and may not even get a cot to sleep on. The carpets have been ripped from the hall they are in and they are sleeping on concrete. It is horrible. I don’t want to go there. The last time I was there was on my honeymoon with Jim and to see it this way will kill me. I can’t go there. It’s not healthy for me physically, or mentally. I can’t go there.

October 27, 2005

6:08pm…..four of the other refugees and I went into Playa Del Carmen today to try and get information on a bus to Mexico City. We learned that for 4000.00 American dollars we could charter a bus. I tried to call Randy and when I couldn’t reach him I emailed a bunch of people, gave them all his number and asked them to call him and tell him that I was trying to reach him. When I tried him again, he answered, telling me that everyone was calling him to tell him I was looking for him to help us. I told him about the bus charter and the money and he told me that he would wire 5,000.00 to me. I also sent an email from the phone office in Playa and sent to many people that had families and friends in our shelter. The letter was very strong and immediately I began receiving responses from people about how they were contacting CNN and all the major news networks, both local and national. People are calling senators, congressmen, the state department and many other US government entities. I received an email from Randy or Maria or Damon, I can’t remember which telling me that the state department had representatives coming to our shelter to find me and Gloria and get us out. I have not been back to the shelter all day and do not know if this happened. I managed to get my last 100.00 out of the bank and used it to get us two rooms in Playa where we will sleep tonight. Our plan was to arrange the shuttle for tomorrow morning and after a good night’s sleep, head out for Mexico City. We would arrive there sometime on Saturday. After calling Randy again to get confirmation number for the Western Union transfer, we ran back to the bank before they closed to get the funds. We were told that they did not have Western Union access and we had to run back to the phone office to call Randy again. He gave me a list of places in Playa that we should be able to pick up money. We quickly drove to all the places listed and they were all closed due to the hurricane and damage. Everyone is opening tomorrow. We decided to drive to Tulum where there is a bank open later. When we passed the Avantura resort, we saw all the cab drivers gone, and people boarding buses. We ran in to see what was happening and were told that they were pulling everyone to Moon Palace. Brian came running out and I told him quickly to get all their things and plan to get to Playa. Tina and I took her rental car and drove as fast as possible to Tulum and the bank there. We were told that the confirmation number given to us was incorrect, so we had to find a telephone office where we could call Randy again. This time he faxed us a copy of the Western Union transfer, and we ran to the bank again. When we got to the bank, the officers told us that we could not get 5,000.00 American cash out in a single day. A government of Mexico policy forbids it. So we had to return to the phone office and call Randy again. This time we told him to wire half to me, and half to Gloria. Les, in the meantime is depositing money into my checking account so I will have access to it from here via ATM. I attempted to get money out, since they have a 300.00 American dollar limit daily, however, the funds were not there. Again, I am penniless in a foreign country. I spoke to Les and he, along with Randy and Damon is helping to get attention drawn to us and help get us out of here. Now, Tina and I are headed back to the shelter where we hope to find the others still waiting for us. We are not sure what we will discover.

Our plan will have to be this:

Go to Playa tonight, and check into our rooms.

In the morning we will have to go to the banks and western union offices and get the funds. From there we will have to once again negotiate a charter bus with the bus station and arrange a time they can get it to us. If we are able to do all this and leave by tomorrow afternoon, we will be on time for the ones traveling on Alaska Air to meet their flights.