Somalia / Bosnia Journal 1992

 

Into fear is where I go
to find my self,
to see
the things that I
must come to know
to be the one
called me.

Mike Farrell

 

Friday, November 6, 1992 - Los Angeles

Air France to Paris, en route to Nairobi - the first leg of a trip for the UNHCR to look at the situation in Somalia and then Bosnia.

We leave about an hour and a half late, but I've got time. Don't meet the rest of the party until tomorrow night in Paris. (Having made these long treks a couple of times before, I've arranged to leave a day early in order to be able to stretch out and try to get some rest at the half-way point rather than do it all in one mind-numbing dash. My sense is this is going to be tough enough without starting out exhausted.)

Joe and Judy and Tom and Mike brought me to the airport. Shelley is working, so we said goodbye earlier. It's kind of daunting to have so many friends and family members express their love and concern so clearly. Telling myself this trip may be the most dangerous yet is one thing, but it's fairly easy to dismiss those concerns as melodrama and chivvy oneself into getting on with what's important. However, when enough people tell you to "keep your head down" and give you the look that says they think they just may be seeing you for the last time, it's enough to put a lump in the throat. Ah well, Michael, go with God.

It all started late last spring, when Richard Walden of Operation USA (which started out a few years ago as Operation California, a small relief organization based on the audacious notion that Richard and his partner could put together surplus medical supplies in this country with the crying need in parts of the Third World by brow-beating someone into loaning them an airplane to ship it in and has since grown into a highly respected world-wide operation) invited me to a dinner to meet Ms. Sadako Ogata, the new UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Ms. Ogata and her assistant, Sylvana Foa, knew of some of my involvement with refugee and human rights issues and asked if I'd consider doing a trip for the UNHCR. A few months later a letter and follow-up phone call from Barbara Francis at the UNHCR office in Washington began to zero in on the where and the when and here I am.

Business class is pretty nice. Seats are bigger and a bit more comfortable and they give you sockettes (not big enough for some), blinders (that always make me think of rich women in Beverly Hills) and a place to put your feet.

A little food and try to sleep. A gray, frowzy uncomfortable night complete with sore back, stiffening neck, coated teeth and disjointed images of Tom Cruise being boyish and muscular and not very convincing.

Saturday, November 7, l992 - Paris.

I'm barely, groggily awake after a too-short night's sleep and it's dark and rainy and going on night again. (How can zis be?) Bags, bus to the Meridien Etoile, voucher for a room. A meal and a walk before bed.

Half a block away is the Champs Elysees. Once there, the Arc d'Triomphe stands in the distance, glowing, majestic, alluring. To walk down this street toward that incredibly romantic monument on a drizzly November Saturday evening is to be not only in a different place but a different time. Oh, Shel, where are you?

At the foot of the monument, people gather. Flowers mark a particular memorial, one I don't understand. I'm surprised, and pleased, at the number of young people here, cavorting, romancing. The sense of history, of permanence, is palpable.

Sunday, November 8, l992 - Paris

Wake up groggy, body clock all screwy. Eat, take the Metro to the Tuileries. Walk, look. Too many people to get near the entrance to the Louvre. The I.M. Pei triangles look weird to me, out of synch with the rest of the architecture. It's grey, chilly, but people are everywhere. Walk over to the Ile de la Cite , through a street market that seems to be all about birds, cages, roosts and feed, and on to Notre Dame. What a sight! More people; artists working the crowd. A black mime in a tuxedo and top hat stands impossibly still on one leg atop a cement post, moving only when someone drops a coin in his box, then shouting "Thank you!" and leaping into another posture. Very artful, very charming. Circling the cathedral, I'm struck by the drama of the gargoyles. They appear to be spirits/demons being driven from the church. Is that the idea? All the way around now, there is a troop of teenagers on roller blades entertaining the crowd by swooping down the street, up onto a ramp, leaping into the air and landing to much applause, only to circle around and go at it again. They are in all sizes and shapes, some of the smaller ones hard put to duplicate the acrobatics of their elders, but game in the attempt. It's a circus, this grey Sunday in Paris. Erin and Mike, you've got to come here!

Everybody looks like a million bucks. Walking around here leads me to an important sociological discovery. I think I'm the only male in Paris over seven years of age wearing white tennies.

Back in the Metro. A woman, poverty stricken, talks to herself. A troubadour enters the car. Very charming, bilingual, he announces his intention then launches into song. Actually quite good! Interestingly, there's no threat about him, no sense of intimidation, no guilt trip. At the end, he passes the hat and many put in money with a smile.

At the hotel, check out and get the bus to Charles De Gaulle. Check in, search out the Business Class lounge and lo and behold, there I find most of my traveling companions –

-Jonathan Estrin is a friend already. Met him through Margie. He and his partner, Shelley List, are successful writer/producers in television, very political, good people. They're very involved with Operation USA and I know Jonathan has done this kind of trip before. He's about 6'4" or 6'5", smart and very funny.

-Del Reisman is president of the Writer's Guild of America, West. I've known him slightly for a long time as he was story editor on a series I did 20 years ago. A nice man. Quiet, unassuming. His first experience of this type, I think.

-Stephanie Liss is a writer, maybe producer as well. Successful. Our only contact has been by phone about this trip plus a lunch where we all got together about a week ago. She's traveled quite a bit, may be the only one of us to have been in Kenya before. Clearly a savvy woman, I was pleased to find that she shares my alternative medicine predilection and is also pretty much a vegetarian. (I don't know what we're going to have to deal with as far as food is concerned.)

-Richard Friedenberg is a screen writer (A River Runs Through It). A very witty man, amiable, gives the sense of having a terrifically sharp mind. I think it's his first such trip.

Having just gotten off the same flight I came in on yesterday, they're feeling pretty ragged, but in good spirits. Then we're joined by another –

-Phil Alden Robinson had gone on ahead of us by a week because his picture was opening in London. A writer and a hot young director (Sneakers, Field of Dreams), he's never done anything like this before. We've spoken on the phone and met for breakfast with a human rights person who briefed us on Bosnia, as well as at the lunch where we all got together. Phil is also very bright, funny and seems to be a good guy.

In all, it seems to be a very congenial lot, which is a relief. The last thing one wants in a situation like this is a prima donna or someone who demands a lot of hand-holding. (Ah, the joys of retrospect. Little did I know at this point that I would be the one needing the hand-holding.)

Finally, as we're comparing stories about inoculations, medications and what-terrifying-thing-the-doctor-said about this or that disease, condition or side effect , we're joined by the last of our contingent –

-Ofra Bikel is a documentary film producer from New York. The only one of our party who hadn't met any of the others up to this point, she is, I believe, an Israeli, who does much of her work currently for Front Line. She, again, was pleasant, congenial, and seemed to fit right in.

At some point around this time I took the opportunity to give voice to a concern that had come up for me since reading a report about the situation in Bosnia. Since of this group only Phil, Stephanie and I were going on that second leg of the journey, I addressed it primarily to them, confessing that I had found myself terrified by a description in the New York Times of the reporter having been crammed into a military vehicle, an armored personnel carrier, to be transported through "sniper alley" and into Sarajevo. What terrified me about it, interestingly, wasn't concern about being shot at, but rather being jammed into a tight space, having the hatch slammed shut and having to ride that way for some time with only little slits of windows near the roof to be able to see out.

I told them that even in reading that description I was overcome with a claustrophobic reaction the like of which I haven't had for some time and, while there really wasn't anything any of them could do about it, I at least wanted it to be understood that if it came to that choice I just might take my chances with the snipers.

To their credit, they were all great about it and we ended up joking about various infirmities of one form or another and let it slide.

Claustrophobia hasn't really been much of a consideration for me for some time, in fact. I have a pretty good understanding of the dynamics of it, I think, and can usually handle whatever comes up, though that might involve walking up a flight or two of stairs rather than getting into a very small, crowded elevator or the like. I didn't care for getting stuck in the elevator in Syria a couple of years ago, or the one in Canada, but in each situation we got it worked out before the panic took over and I became a clawing, screaming madman. (There was one comic-opera incident in Egypt, going into the Great Pyramid at Giza, that still makes me laugh. But I worked it out.)

Just before our flight is called, Ofra is hailed to the desk and up-graded to First Class, which causes a short round of good-natured jollying. Phil, his ticket being paid for by Universal, is also in First Class on this leg, but no one really seems to care. As we pass through the gate I'm stopped and up-graded as well, which makes me decidedly uncomfortable, but, other than the embarrassment of all of us not getting the same treatment, it's not the worst thing that can happen on an overnight flight.

Monday, November 9, l992 - Nairobi

Another grungy, frowzy, mostly sleepless night. Breakfast while getting an eyeful of sub-Saharan Africa (a first for me), the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa, the Indian Ocean. We land in Nairobi (which the French pilot insists on pronouncing NAY-ROBI) at about 9:30 AM and walk through customs, passport check, etc., without a hitch. It's definitely the Third World, and bureaucrats are bureaucrats, be they African or any other kind, but other than a bit of a pile-up at passport control where we waited while a man in a suit insisted on doing things at his own pace while another watched him do it, things went fine. Luggage came through and we changed some money into Kenyan Shillings (35 to the US $l) and met Barbara Francis, who had come in from Washington a day earlier (she's young, maybe early 30s, elfin, smart, a good smile, I think a bit nervous at having to shepherd a bunch of Hollywood types she only knew over the phone and by reputation through what promised to be a strenuous time) and her UNHCR counterpart in Nairobi, Panos Moumtzis (a Greek, 30ish, very easy-going, unflappable, slightly built, but a workhorse, a pleasant face and a diplomat's manner).

Jambo, jambo all around, then Panos guided us around to two Land Cruiser type vehicles and we dumped our luggage in one and loaded into the back of the other. As I sat down and got the sense that others were piling in behind me, the seat was locking down in front of me and the window beside me wouldn't open I had a wave of panic as "the big C" came over me and I had to excuse my way back out of the car in a hurry and take a couple of deep breaths while I tried to sort things out.

What the hell was this? I don't get claustrophobia attacks in the backs of cars! Well, old pal, I realized, you do now. In Africa, after a long, hard night on a plane, putting yourself into a new and possibly sticky situation with a bunch of people you don't know as well as you might, you apparently do now.

I was embarrassed. Everyone was great. They adjusted things around so I could sit by the door and off we went. But God, was I embarrassed. And more than a little shocked.

As we headed toward Nairobi on the highway I was amazed at how much the countryside reminded me of Central America. Even the buildings had the same feeling of casual construction typical of so many in other parts of the underdeveloped world, rather than the finished, somehow clean lines of those in the wealthier countries. The roads are serviceable, usually two lanes rather than four, and the traffic is typically made up of buses, smaller cars, many of them showing signs of great wear and belching black smoke, and a lot of trucks. Everyone drives at one of two speeds: fast and stop.

Nairobi is in the highlands of south-central Kenya, just below the equator. Being a mile high, it doesn't have the hot weather you'd expect in equatorial Africa - at least it wasn't what I'd expected. The vegetation, though plentiful, is not lush.

There is a sense of energy in the city. Traffic moves in a snarl and people dash in and out of it or ride bikes, motor scooters or cycles through it. Buildings are for the most part apparently in good shape, though I didn't get a sense that there was much attention paid to keeping them clean. I didn't see as many soldiers as I had expected, particularly in view of President Daniel Arap Moi's reputation for having a pretty heavy hand.

We were taken to the Nairobi InterContinental Hotel and got checked in. It's a pretty nice place and feels fairly comfortable. Panos gave us a warning about carrying money and even passports with us on the street, saying crime is a real problem, and suggested that we take advantage of the hotel's safe deposit boxes for our valuables.

Most everyone wanted to walk around a bit and get acclimated in the free time we had before a meeting at the UNHCR office, but Jonathan had a number to call and thought we could meet with someone from the IMC (International Medical Corps), so I agreed to join him.

We met with Gwen Borgeault, a pretty American (from PA) woman in, I'd guess, her early 20s, who is the logistics person for the IMC in the city. She's been here for a year, seeing to it that the needs of their medical people on the ground in Somalia are met. The three of us had lunch at an Italian restaurant she knew and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to get pretty good minestrone and spaghetti.

The IMC operates three hospitals in Somalia. One in Baidoa, one in Mogadishu and the third in another city that I didn't get. She indicates that progress is being made, but that they still operate under extremely difficult conditions. They do what she referred to as "Civil War Medicine," meaning the techniques they're forced to use are pretty primitive. She spoke, for instance, of surgeons having to use stones to pound in pins to hold bones together because they don't have enough surgical hammers.

(Somalia was ruled from l969 until he was overthrown in l99l by Siad Barre, an increasingly cruel tyrant. For the first ten years of his reign he was supported by the Soviets as a counterbalance to US support for Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. In a maneuver magnificently descriptive of the idiocy of Cold War politics, once a communist revolution overthrew Selassie and the Soviets no longer needed Barre, they dropped him and the US picked him up and became his best friend. So for twenty years, first one side and then the other supported this dictator in terrorizing his people, giving him all the guns he could ever hope to want, without any apparent consideration of the needs or desires of the people of Somalia. In January of '9l Barre was overthrown in a revolution led by two of his former stalwarts, General Mohammed Farah Aidid and one Ali Mahdi Mohammed. After succeeding in throwing Barre and his forces out of the country, Aidid and Ali Mahdi had a falling out and are now fighting each other. Barre's forces, in the meantime, have made an attempt at resurgence under the leadership of a General Siad Morgan, who is Siad Barre's son-in-law. All of this has resulted in a currently stalemated civil war and the utter collapse of any recognizable government in Somalia. It is further complicated by the fact that the Somalis are in large part a nomadic people who are divided into clan groupings that dictate loyalties and family ties. A drought and resultant famine, exacerbated by the war, have driven the people off their land and left them without plots to plant or livestock to tend, hence the disaster of tens of thousands of them starving. They are a fiercely proud people who do not consider themselves "African," had no written language until l972, and have a rather distinct appearance. They are often thin, have beautiful, delicate features and can be incredibly striking. The model, Iman, is a Somali.)

Gwen says that progress is being made, in spite of it all. She says Mogadishu is "less tense" now because of a meeting between Ali Mahdi and General Aidid. (We later learned that the meeting, though scheduled, hadn't taken place.) She says doing work in the country is made more complicated because of the lack of a functioning government. Guns are everywhere, causing IMC people to have to hire guards from the various clans to assure there won't be violence. (Huh?) (I find it interesting that people from the various clans will cooperate with each other in this "guarding" position. She says they tried hiring only one clan but that provoked violence.)

A problem they're dealing with medically that is directly related to the Somali pride is the fact that the men so hate the idea of having a limb amputated that they will often refuse to come in for treatment when they have a wound, with the almost inevitable result that infection sets in, gangrene results and amputation is required where it might not have been had treatment been timely.

Fierce Somali pride, she says, results in their unwillingness to use a simple "peg leg" prosthetic. IMC is dealing with this by working with a prosthetic factory in India to provide more modern limb replacements.

She also pointed out that war is good business. IMC pays $3000 per month to rent a small house in Mogadishu to contain their operation. Planes are charged a "landing fee," payable, I guess, to Gen. Aidid, whose territory includes the airfield. Another interesting phenomenon she described is the chat trade. Chat, or khat, (pronounced variously CHAT, CHOT, CAT & COT over the days we're there) is a plant the leaves of which, when chewed, produce a high similar to that from speed. It is legally grown in Kenya, shipped in by air to Somalia (or carried in by traders) and very popular. "Everybody chews it." (An expatriate I talked to later who had tried it said it takes hours to get the reaction - found it not worth the effort.) Gwen said that someone had tracked the cycle of use (start chewing in the morning, high by early afternoon) demonstrating a connection between increased gunfire and wounds to be treated in their hospital and the times of the day most of the users are experiencing their highs. Also, naturally, a large number of these gunmen/chat users are teenagers.

I asked Gwen to explain a concept I had read about, called "monetization." She says it is the practice of selling food aid at low cost to Somali merchants who then resell it in country for a profit. It is a way of reestablishing an economy in the country. The UN is doing it with some of the aid, she says, and then taking the money it makes on the sale and using it to buy more supplies. It is effective in part, she says, but you still have to have a safety net of supplies to provide for those who have no money to put into the economy.

Some have suggested trading food for guns in order to get guns out of the hands of so many. She says it hasn't worked because if one gives up his gun and gets food in exchange, he then turns around only to have someone else shoot him and take the food. Only, she says, a meaningful program of long term work and education will get the guns out of their hands.

Gwen introduces us to someone from the American Embassy who says Sen. Paul Simon and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum are due in. I ask him to say hello.

Back to the hotel to hook up with the others and off to the UNHCR office to be briefed by the ranking representative, Carol (sp?) Faubert. (50s, thickset, graying, either Belgian or French)

It took me a while to warm up to Mr. Faubert. He had an attitude that put me off. It was hard to tell if he was uncaring, patronizing or just tired. He described the camps and the situation in them for which UNHCR has responsibility in Kenya.

KAKUMA - N.W. Kenya. Near Sudanese border - Deals in large part with "unaccompanied minors" who came out of Southern Sudan. Of the Dinka tribe, they were originally pushed out of Sudan by government forces from the north and fled into Ethiopia. When that situation was no longer hospitable, they came back into Sudan, only to be driven south into Kenya. There are supposed to now be some 20,000 of them in this camp, all children, either orphaned or driven away from their parents. Complicating factor is the presence of the SPLA (Sudanese People's Liberation Army), which may be using them as soldiers. One report said 4,000 kids had been taken by SPLA and used as human mine sweepers. That has apparently been debunked.

WALDA - N. Central Kenya - Near Ethiopian Border - 45,000 Ethiopian refugees. It is not technically a camp, rather a "gathering." UNHCR provides food only.

BANISSA - NE Kenya - Small camp. Problems there, food distribution must be handled by clan elders. Camp will "hopefully" disappear.

MANDERA - NE Kenya - 50,000 Somalis. Similar food distribution problems. Main problem is sanitation. CONCERN setting up a latrine program.

EL WAK - NE Kenya - l7,000 Somalis - Similar problems. "Some fuss in the press. It's not that bad," per Faubert.

IFO, DAGAHEY & HAGADERA - E. Kenya - l00,000 Somalis

LIBOI - E. Kenya (Border w/Somalia) UNHCR tried to close this camp as it was too close to the border. It stayed open with the flood of population that keeps coming over the border and filling it up. People are processed here and sent on to Ifo, Dagahey or Hagadera.

(A problem in dealing with a nomadic population is that sometimes people move back into either Somalia or Ethiopia, rebuild their houses and only come back to the camp when the feeding starts.)

(Another problem is with difficulty of drawing borders between peoples. The people in a large circle that includes NE Kenya, Somalia and Southern Ethiopia are all one people: Somalis.)

UTANGE - SE Kenya - (Near Mombasa) - Population came from Somalia earlier, many from Mogadishu area. Many are upper middle class, well-to-do, intellectual. Many came by boat to coastal Kenya, others drifted down there from camps in the north. Setting up a new camp, MARAFA, to deal with the overflow.

THIKA - (Near Nairobi) - houses Ethiopians and Somalis. It is a staging area for resettlement to a third country or return to Ethiopia. 6,000 here are headed for the U.S.

In all, there are approximately 300,000 Somali refugees in Kenya.

Q. - Why are these people refugees? A. - War, in some cases. Hunger, due to drought. Hunger, due to breakdown of infrastructure. Social breakdown sets up a chaotic situation.

Q- . What is the ultimate goal of this work? A. - Repatriation. Until that time, to attempt to stabilize the situation, meet human needs. Refugee status is difficult to ascertain in areas where Kenyans, Somalis and Ethiopians interpopulate. First objective is to stabilize the population. Set up small projects that give the message that they may stay in place, not flow to the cities and create large gatherings. Repatriation is always a goal. "Durable solutions" are what is sought.

Q. - Could early assistance have prevented much of this? A. - Yes. Resources always follow the front page headlines.

General comment: Monetization has to be done very carefully.

Problems and priorities - l) Stabilize emergency. 2) Stabilize deaths per l000 population per day. 3) Lower deaths per l000 population per day. 4) Get Kenya Government to authorize new camp sites. (Expansion of need creates expansion of camps. Gigantic camps create massive ecological damage.)

Security problems exist. They include rape, robbery (against refugees and against staff). Committed by? Probably bandits (Somali and/or Kenyan), though, he admitted, charges have been lodged suggesting such misbehavior on the part of Kenyan military and/or police. No proof of such a thing, so far.

I liked him a bit better by this time. When I asked him about Sahnoun, he admitted (off the record) that it was a big mistake to fire him and probably created bigger problems. (Mohammed Sahnoun is an Algerian diplomat who was appointed by Boutros-Ghali [UN Secty. Gen.] as his personal or special representative to Somalia. He is reported to have been very effective, but short on diplomacy. He is said to have established good relationships with Aidid, Ali Mahdi, etc., and was making progress in getting them to understand the value of UN programs to feed the hungry and getting them to lay off the theft of supplies, as well as building an understanding of the need for UN troops to protect the relief supplies and workers. Very delicate negotiations, but indications are he was having success. He also spoke very frankly, in public, about UN shortcomings, about the mistakes made in the early days of the problem and about the fact that the NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations] were the heroes who had succeeded where the UN and governments had failed. For this heresy he was roundly criticized within UN circles [there is reportedly an African Mafia within the UN bureaucracy controlled by jealous and/or power-hungry West Africans who didn't take kindly to his criticism of their failures]. He is reported to have said that if he had $1,000,000 to spend on Somalia he'd give half to the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], one quarter each to two other NGOs and none to the UN. The heat got intense and because he was appointed by Boutros-Ghali he evidently thought he could face them down. He tendered his resignation, thereby laying it all out on the table. To the surprise of many, Boutros-Ghali, evidently feeling the heat, accepted the resignation. Now the new appointee has to start over in establishing all these important relationships and much time will be lost - and perhaps many lives.)

After this meeting Panos took us to his office and gave a run-down of what lay in store. The schedule calls for us to fly out tomorrow morning in two small planes (I felt the skin on the back of my neck start to crawl at the choice of adjectives) and he wanted to let us know that there had been a couple of developments that might prove to be a concern. A shipment of supplies is being trucked by convoy from Mogadishu to Baidoa (the city for which we were headed) tomorrow. As he put it, "tensions get a little higher" when these convoys go out. Meaning? Meaning that convoys have been attacked in the past and we might want to skip the trip to Baidoa rather than risk being in the area when there is gunplay. We polled the group and decided that Somalia was what we had come to see, that we couldn't hope to have a complete understanding of the situation without being there and seeing it for ourselves and that we wanted to go ahead as planned.

So, back in the cars (with everyone being understanding about my needing to sit by the door) and to the hotel to clean up a bit before being taken out to dinner at a special local place called, (can you believe it?) "Carnivore.' (!!)

Carnivore (when they first said it I was sure it was a joke) is evidently a popular spot here, a must for tourists. A very African motif, open sides, open pit barbecue kind of idea, bamboo or wood structure with palm-leaf roofing, wooden tables. Everyone says "Jambo" when you come in (same as at the hotel and at the airport), which means hello, but may be more properly an African version of aloha. The barbecue is literally stacked with skewers of meat of all kinds. Thank God, because this country has a significant Muslim population, they also had vegetarian options on the menu. Because so many of the people in our party were not meat eaters, or not red meat eaters, we were having a great time figuring out how to not offend anyone and at the same time avoid starving to death. The program is that you order your dinner which, unless you specify otherwise, they assume will include a lot of the meat that the waiters bring around on skewers and slice directly, from whatever portion of the animal they happen to be carrying, onto your plate. Richard and Jonathan were the kings of the evening. Richard simply decided that since he was here he ought to try everything and, to our delight and amazement, did so. Jonathan, on the other hand, kept protesting that all he wanted was chicken, but every time they would come around with some exotic beast or another in hand, he'd say, "Well, OK, but just a little. All I really want is chicken." Phil and I, who were sitting across from these two prize carnivores, nearly split our sides laughing as they worked their way through turkey, giraffe, pork, crocodile, hartebeeste, zebra and everything else under the sun, with Richard declaiming, "this really isn't bad" (except for the crocodile) and Jonathan insisting, "but all I really want is chicken!"

After a long day, a good evening and looking forward to an early rising, we took off for the hotel. (Mr. Faubert had joined us later at dinner, further thawing my original impression.) On the way back, Richard asked if I had any understanding of the source of my claustrophobia. I said that while I couldn't be sure, it might derive from a childhood experience where my father disposed of a mouse that had been trapped in a drain (I identified with the mouse, of course) in a rather dramatic way. We discussed the phenomenon and the fact that I had since discovered some ways to offset the panic when I can see it coming, etc. He was so sweet about it and so genuinely interested that I was very moved.

Once into my too-narrow bed, worried about the idea of "small" planes tomorrow, I did an experiment and let myself go into the panic and sense of suffocation and other stuff that comes up in association with this feeling. I thought maybe if I tried to go through the sensation instead of running away from it, it might possibly release some of the tension. I had to find a way to get out from under this thing. It made no sense to come all this way and end up blowing it because I couldn't get in a stupid little plane. Well, whatever. It was a powerful night, if not one that included much sleep.