How Could I Save Them?

There are no words to describe what a mother feels when she knows how badly her children are suffering and yet she can't do anything to help them. I've never believed in the word "can't" in my entire life, and I wasn't about to start now. So, I thought. And thought and thought and thought some more. Surely there had to be a way to be with my children, hug them at night, protect them, help them work through their bad times, and teach them how wonderful and loved they really are. There just had to be a way to help my kids!

The most important thing in my entire life is to be with my children. I don't care about money or possessions or anything other than being with them, sharing experiences with them, and teaching them that they matter, they're important, and that they are fundamentally wonderful people - the exact opposite things they were learning living with their father in Yemen. Without them, I sincerely just want to die. That's a fact. They are the only thing that gives me joy and purpose and hope.

So, I set about trying to figure out a way to help my children.

The first thing I did was try to reason with their father. Countless conversations ensued where I tried to convince him that the kids needed their mother. A year later, I finally gave up on that. I decided that, no matter how horrible life was in Yemen for both me and the kids, at the very least, if I moved there, we could at least be together and see each other. So, I went to Yemen twice trying to just get along with their father so that I could be near my children. I sincerely tried very hard. He was always angry, he spent his days trying to keep the kids away from me, from morning until night, the children and I listened as he constantly told the kids and I how horrible a woman I was and how much he hated me and what a bad mother I was, etc. I didn't speak up, and I tried to just put up with him and his family (who hated me as well) so that I could stay and be with my children. However, he would not stop hitting me or the children, and it was absolutely intolerable. Getting hit myself was bad enough. There were days when my chest and arms were so bruised and sore that I literally could not walk to the bathroom without severe pain. What was absolutely intolerable was watching him hit the children all day every day, often for no reason whatsoever, and seeing how he made them feel worthless, dirty and bad. Every comment and action from him to them was aimed at breaking their spirit and making them feel like they were pieces of dirt who couldn't do anything right. When I tried to counteract what he was trying so hard to teach them (i.e., that they were annoying little pieces of crap), he got angrier and increased his efforts to make sure that the kids stay away from me. I was not allowed to speak to my children, and they were not allowed to speak to me unless he was standing there to monitor what we said to each other and prevent us from saying anything he didn't want spoken.

There is only so much hitting a woman can take. At least, that's the way it was for me. I couldn't stand it anymore. He just got meaner and nastier, and everytime he'd get angry at me, he'd take it out on the children. My presence seemed to be harming them more than it was helping them. So, I finally decided that I had better leave. He kept threatening to throw me out of his house and into the streets, and on nmore than one occasion, he had called the embassy and the military police telling them that I needed to leave his house, and that I was not allowed anywhere near his house again. The only thing that prevented that from happening was that my oldest daughter was screaming and wailing and stood up and refused to let him throw me out of his house. He would have done it anyway, but his father intervened and told him to let me stay. It got so bad, though, that my only option, I felt, was to leave.

I tried to find a job in Yemen so that I could get my own place there and at least still be near my children. However, there are no jobs available to a foreign woman who can't speak Arabic. There are two English language institutes there who hire English teachers who can't speak Arabic, and I applied with both of them but was told that they didn't have any available positions. With no money and no job, there was no way to live on my own in Yemen. I had tried my best, but I failed. I left and went back to America.

I tried to convince their father to move to a different country - one where we could both find employment, one where there was electricity and plenty of water (unlike Yemen). He refused to even hear me. I suggested that we set up a joint custody agreement, where the kids spend part of the year with me and part of the year with him. He wouldn't even think about that, either. He didn't care about what the kids wanted or needed. He only cared about what he wanted - and what he wanted was for me to be gone and for everyone in the community to think that he was this awesome, upstanding, upper-class Muslim man who was raising three children by himself (even though his family are the closest thing to caretakers that the children have at this point, and none of them want to be bothered with my kids, either).

So, reasoning, pleading, bargaining, and trying to appease him did no good whatsoever. So I tried to think of another solution.

I researched private military groups, also known as "mercenaries". I found one, met with the man, and was promised that these people could go in and bring my children home. He seemed honest and trustworthy, and I gave the man $5000.00, which was money I certainly didn't have. He took my money and promptly disappeared. That didn't work, and I was out $5000.00.

I decided to ask for help. I wrote to all the local and national media stations, as well as all the talk shows on TV - numerous times. I never received one response from anyone.

So I decided to ask help from regular people. I went to the library and got a book called "The Rich Register", which lists info and addresses on the wealthiest 2500 people in America. I spent $400 on envelopes, paper, and stamps and sent out over 1100 letters to people in that book, explaining the situation and asking for help. With 1100 letters, you would think that at least one person would write back or call or email, but once again, I didn't hear anything from even one single person. I guess people just care about their own problems and are too busy watching the latest escapades of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to care about three American kids who are being held captive and abused in a faraway country. I realized that their lives just didn't matter to anyone.

I decided to ask for help from the Jewish community, since Ahmed hates the Jewish people so badly and is working hard to instill that hate in my children. I figured that, if they decided to help, they cold help prevent three little kids from being trained to grow up and join the next generation of anti-Jewish terrorists. So I sent letters to all the synagogues and Jewish centers I could locate in the Eastern US. Again, not one response.

So then I decided to write to other parents whose children had been kidnapped internationally. I wrote to several of them, but again, got no responses. I started to think that maybeI was completely invisible and that none of my letters and emails were reaching their destination, but in reality, I gues the fact is just that no one cares.

I made a website, but got no visitors, other than Ahmed. He found the website and demanded that I take it down or else he'd hurt the kids. I know who he is and what he does, so I took it down. No one ever came to the website, anyway.

So, I gave up on trying to reach out to others. I learned that this was all on my shoulders, there was no help to be found, and that I alone would have to save those children.

The American Embassy wouldn't help, the State Dept wouldn't help, no one would help. The travel ban meant that there was no way to get my kids on a plane in Yemen, so I decided that I would have to get the kids across the Red Sea to Djibouti, where the American Embassy would do their job, replace my kids passports, and then I could bring the kids home. So, I started planning.....