In the early hours of the morning I awoke to re-bunch my jacket which I was using for a pillow. My ankles hung over the second seat where I was curled up in a fetal position on the bench. Nick was head to head with me on his set of two benches. My contact lenses were dry as toast and my eyes felt scratchy.
We were all "surfacing" around 0630. The airport was fairly quiet. At ten to seven, our guards had us all move upstairs to the mezzanine level where a snack bar, rest rooms, and lots of tables and chairs were. The reason was to keep us from mixing with the local traffic of passengers coming to the airport to catch flights. Ethiopian Airlines has a couple of flights a day into Gambela. The morning one arriving at 0900 was to have on it a major player in the Foreign Ministry who was coming to 'sort us out'. We really looked forward to the Caravan arriving about that time too.
When the terminal doors opened at 0730, we were situated upstairs sitting at tables having coffee and egg sandwiches which we bought at the snack bar. Those of us who leaned on the railing looking down at the terminal below were told to stay back and out of view of the locals below. We were not to be seen.
At 0800 two large World Food Organization cargo planes arrived to pick up the many pallets of food they would haul out to deprived regions in the country where tensions were high and families were suffering. These large cargo transport planes came like clockwork while we were detained. Their "prop wash" was significant so we were all happy our "babies" were safe in the hangar. At 0900, the Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa arrived. Many people got off and a small handful were Customs and Foreign Ministry personnel. The leader wore an impressive uniform hat and dark glasses. He looked like a darker version of General Douglas MacArthur but without the pipe. From a small balcony next to the snack bar which faced the ramp, we could see him walking into the terminal with his aides. He was a thin man and when he removed his sunglasses, he had an intelligent expression on his face and animated, round dark eyes. I suspected he was also a force to be reckoned with and probably did not like being taken for granted. Max and Beatrice were downstairs to meet him. We still waited for the Caravan from Ed Damazin.
Waiting in the mezzanine for news was tedious. We channel surfed on a TV perched on a table near the snack bar, stretched out on the floor to read or snooze, and the younger set who had the presence of mind to bring playing cards in their backpacks played raucously and joyfully. Some used the bathroom sinks to hand launder socks and undies. Mastering the water hoses in the toilet stalls meant we could lean our heads over the "Head" and wash our hair. Pix had shampoo she shared with everyone.
Pixie was amazing through all this. She smiled all the time, kept her cool, enjoyed teaching Colin, Bella, and Emily card games, and was quick to see someone needing a neck and shoulder rub. We all needed that! She managed to get to everybody over hours of waiting around.
Some time after 1000 the Caravan finally arrived. We watched again from the balcony as the Caravan was marshalled (led) to a parking spot near the hanger where our aircraft were. Guards, Oscar, and the Foreign Ministry man from the capital were right there by the plane as our guys disembarked. They too had to hand over their electronics and passports. The plane was then searched. As it had a lot of gear and bags which it routinely hauled from place to place, this process took a while. Pilot Steve simply watched as the plane he was responsible for was gone over by people who didn't know a thing about airplanes in general, Cessna Grand Caravans in particular.
Inside the terminal, Sam and the others with the man from Addis Ababa and the Foreign Ministry -- who I'll call "Felix"--came upstairs where they could talk away from locals. They kept to one end of the room away from all of us who stayed at the end with food, TV, ashtrays, and card games. Sam and 'Felix' were doing a lot of talking and by afternoon and another round of egg sandwiches, we were told that one pilot from each aircraft could go to his plane and bring out anything left in it that he needed to have in the terminal. Nick brought our two small sleeping bags, a flashlight, and my journal/logbook. Later in the afternoon, Felix set up an interviewing 'station' outside the locked storage room. He wanted pilots brought to him one at a time to be interviewed about the last 36 hours. Felix wanted to narrow his search for blame over our entering his country illegally. We knew where this was going. Sam would be held accountable, and fines or "ransoms" for our release might be levied. We learned on the side from Beatrice that before arriving in Gambela, Sam had notified the embassies of nationalities represented in our rally group of our detention. Word got back to the U.S State Department that 12 U.S. citizens were being detained under a type of "house arrest". Senator Maria Cantwell from Washington state was also aware of our predicament.
What we soon realized about "Felix" was that he had a personable side to him and could be witty. Nick had his one-on-one interview. Felix wanted to be taken seriously but also wanted to break down barriers. In a situation like we were in, one had to be careful what this approach might mean or how it could be used to advantage. Felix asked Nick what sort of flying he did and Nick replied that he was a retired professional pilot having flown for different airlines. Felix assumed Nick's experience was 'domestic' flying and this would explain why Nick "may not have understood the consequences of flying around internationally and how serious it is breaking aviation laws in foreign countries." Nick assured him he had plenty of experience flying commercially abroad and knew full well that in the countries he flew to, "...aviation authorities knew how to process flights from foreign countries and how to properly interface and coordinate with all government agencies involved in the handling of foreign carriers." Nick went on to say that problems arise when agencies within the government "don't talk to one another". The Foreign Ministry's claim that they did not know we were coming so could not have given approval, and that Ethiopian Customs and Immigration weren't present for our arrival was more an indictment of a major breakdown in communications between the parties involved. The airport authority, the ECAA, and the military complex at the airport all knew we were coming. That no one within their ranks thought to inform the Foreign Ministry appeared to be more a problem within their domain as the Vintage Air Rally had covered its bases to the best of its ability. Yet, the fact remained -- we entered and landed without permission at a time when "Who's in charge here?" was being challenged on more than one front in Ethiopia at the time of our arrival. This had become abundantly clear the longer we were here. The arguing we witnessed between Oscar (whose position was answerable to the Foreign Ministry) and airport authorities the day we arrived, and then the silence and tension that we witnessed among our overseers once the foreign ministry people arrived showed us that not everyone among the Ethiopians involved in our "case" were on the same page. All we wanted at this point was to leave the country and not be in the middle of real tensions within the country's power structure.
Later in the afternoon, we all had to go downstairs one by one and retrieve our backpacks and other bags from the storage room, bring them to Felix, remove the contents and show him we did not have things "we shouldn't have" - presumably hidden electronics, drugs, weapons etc. The bags then needed to be put back in the store room. I kept thinking that all this was giving Felix - the man in charge now - time to decide whether or not we could go to the hotel that night. It was now too late to fly to our next destination. When my turn came up to bring out my bags, I looked at Felix and smiled. He smiled back and I proceeded to unload my belongings. I brought out 3 or 4 zip lock bags of toiletry/lotions items. I said, "I know what you must be thinking. 'Where in the heck does she think she's going to use all that stuff?' Well, I'm a woman. I can't help it." He chuckled and said, "I know. I'm married to one." At that point he waved me on and I didn't need to unload the rest of my bag. Any crack in the wall might mean we get to go to the hotel. A few minutes later I started to climb the stairs back to the mezzanine and saw staffer Nathalie approaching Felix's table with her bags for inspection. The poor woman was exhausted and not happy being ordered around by a strange man. She looked angry and Felix sensed it. He focused hard on her and demanded to know what her problem was. She threw a small bag down hard on the table in front of him and said firmly, "I don't like you!" Everybody within ear shot froze. It got very quiet and I hurried up the stairs.
What's another night in the terminal, I lamely asked myself.
It was difficult interpreting the facial expressions of Sam and Felix and other officials in his entourage while they conferred and discussed things across the room from us. We naturally speculated things amongst ourselves - it gave us something to do as what we were best skilled at doing -- flying our airplanes from interesting location to interesting location -- was not an option at this point. But we had to be careful what we talked about as guards now were casually mingling among us and though they appeared to not be focused on us, they had ears. Sam approached us for a 'briefing' -- an update on what was going on. Great discretion in choice of words and the use of English slang expressions that the guards would not understand were employed and we learned from bits and pieces wedged between the lines of Sam's talking the extent of the embassies' awareness of our situation, media coverage back in the UK and in Africa, and the prioritized list of what to focus on next: meeting with customs agents from Addis Ababa, explaining from our perspective what happened and why, and negotiating our release to go to the hotel. The first two were in progress. The last one, not so good.
It came to pass that we were to spend another night in the terminal. Talks had stalemated. No passports, no electronics, no hotel, but more egg sandwiches. The people working at the mezzanine snackbar were working harder than ever. We kept them busy making those toasted egg sandwiches which cost all of $3. Amazing, thick, dark coffee, tea, water, and mango juice were $1. A kind of rubbery, gray colored tortilla was also available and if the snack bar personnel were up to it, they would heat up a beef stew of sorts that could fill the tortilla for $3. We were okay.
Before retiring for the evening to our 'spot' in the boarding area room, I walked around visiting with others and seeing how they were doing. The majority of us kept our sense of humor though we were all looking haggard and scruffy. Johannes and Fabian laughed the most and got along great with the guards. Emily, Bella, Pix, Colin, Adam, Lino and a couple other young folk kept playing cards. J.B. remained very quiet. He sat straight in a chair, arms folded in front of him, feet up on a chair and looked around casually or stared off on one spot. I figured when all this was over, he would have a lot to say. Ingo, the Bucker pilot from Germany, managed to always look like he just got out of a shower and had a secret laundry service to provide him clean, pressed clothes. He kept cool and quiet. Many seemed content to just let time pass while they observed others and stayed more or less to themselves.
Our second night in the terminal was not as comfortable as the previous night. Our 'keepers' decided to cut power to the building which gave us no lights to find our way to the bathrooms during the night and no air conditioner. Not very nice.
The night was long. But the next day came on schedule and with it a change of fortune.
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