Crossing the Red Sea on an Inflatable Boat - part 1 (12)

I had spent months in America trying to find some kind of help to bring my kids home to America where they wanted to be - and where they needed to be. After months of trying to reach out and spending thousands of dollars, I realized that there was no help, and no one cared. But I truly believe that love is the strongest force there is, so I decided that I would bring the kids home by myself - in spite of my own government's attempts to stop me, in spite of his government's attempts to stop me, in spite of the travel ban that meant they could not board a plane from Yemen, etc. I've always believed that "Where there's a will, there's a way", and I certainly had the will.

Not having my kids' passports was a problem. The travel ban forbidding them from getting on a plane was a problem. The lack of money was a problem. Their father's high-level connections with the Vice-President of Yemen, the Minister of the Interior, the Yemeni military police, and an army of people there willing to do anything he commanded was definitely a problem. But, I believed, problems can be overcome if you want it bad enough, and I definitely wanted it bad enough. My kids needed me, and nothing was going to stop me from saving them.

I decided that the only way I could bring the kids home was to go to Yemen, grab them, get them to the coast, and get them across the Red Sea to Djibouti, where the US Embassy would provide replacement passports for the kids and where there was no travel ban preventing them from getting on a plane to come home. So I set about developing a plan to make that happen.

The first problem was that I had already taken the kids and ran once (when I ran to the US Embassy, who decided they didn't want to help us and sent my kids back to their father's house). As a result, Ahmed forbid me from going near his house again and had people set up to watch the street around his house to make sure I couldn't get near. He also said that if I showed up in Yemen again, that he would have me arrested at the airport or he would have me killed. I know how well-connected he is there, and I knew he wasn't lying. So the first obstacle to overcome was to figure out how to get into the country.

I went to court and legally changed my name to something completely different, and I got a passport in that name. Then, I bought a plane ticket to fly into a city far from where he lived - 7 hours away by car, in fact. He expected me to show up at the airport in the capital city where he lived. He wouldn't have people on the lookout in a faraway city.

The next problem to overcome was to figure out how to get from that far city to the capital city. See, there are 3 major cities in Yemen, and the government only has control in those cities. The tribes control the areas outside the cities, and foreigners are not allowed to travel outside the cities without a special travel permission from the government because the tribes are always kidnapping any foreigners they can find in order to bargain for things from the government. There was no way I could get that travel permission. So I ordered the black robe and scarf and face covering that all the women in Yemen wear, and I worked hard to save up as much money as I could. I figured if I had the money, I could pay a Yemeni man to drive me to the capital and get me past all the military checkpoints where they stop you and ask you for your travel permission paper. Also, women don't generally travel alone in Yemen. They are always accompanied by their husband or a male family member. It would be difficult for me to get around as a woman by herself.

Then there was the problem of how to cross the Red Sea with three kids. I researched places where I might be able to get a boat ride, but since the kids had no passports and people would be looking for them, the only option was to do it myself. So I bought a 14-foot inflatable sea-worthy sailboat from seaeagle.com and decided to take that with me and use that boat to get across the Red Sea to Djibouti.

The other difficult strategy was figuring out how to get across the Red Sea on my inflatable boat with just me and three children. I studied Google Earth, and the shortest distance from Yemen to Djibouti was to launch from a very remote area called Bab al-Mandeb. According to Google Earth, from that point, it was about 20 miles across the Sea to Djibouti. Leaving from the southern city of Yemen, it was at least 150 miles across. The boat would have to be rowed, as I couldn't take a motor with me. I figured I needed to get to Bab al-Mandeb and launch from there.

But even if I could row in a straight line, and row non-stop, I figured I had at least 7 hours of rowing. I am not athletic or strong, and I knew I would be taking care of three kids who would be excited and scared, and I thought it would be safer if I had help. So I contacted a male friend of mine and asked him to go to Yemen with me to help me row the boat across the Red Sea. I didn't think my chances of success were great if I were doing it all by myself. He agreed, and he got his plane ticket.

Then there will the little things to plan. One was availability of water. You can't drink the water in Yemen, and there are no water fountains or places to get fresh water there. You have to buy drinking water and carry it with you. We would be out in the middle of nowhere - 5 of us - for who knows how long, so I needed to make sure we would be able to carry enough water to keep us alive until we got to Djibouti. So I bought two 5-gallon collapsible camping jugs to carry water in. I took a thin heat blanket, because we would have to row at night to avoid getting caught, and it would be cold. I thought of every problem that might arise and tried to prepare for them.

The day came for put the plan in action and to finally bring my kids home. We went to the airport and boarded the plane....