72 hours should be enough time to infiltrate the Tunisian government and diplomatically extract a U.S. citizen. Sounds like a LeCarre’ novel but in October of 2005 I did just that…………..well sorta’.

On Saturday morning, the week before halloween, I was asleep in my van in the garage. I happened to be home for a week or two between trips and having rented the house out for the winter, had taken up residence in my garage. My phone rings and my sister is on the other end of the phone. Now, you need to understand that my sister usually calls only when some old high school friend has died or her husband is drunk again; so I was a bit guarded when I answered.

“Have you read your email yet?” she asked.

“It’s only 7 in the morning here.”

As it turned out, an email from the captain of the cruise ship that my mother was on in the Mediterranean said that mom had collapsed the afternoon before and was in the emergency room in Tunis…………Tunisia. The message was somewhat cryptic and went on to say that they had left her there and sailed on! My sister wanted to know if my passport was current. Since she’s never owned one, I knew what was next………

The next day I went down to Gunnison, CO, the nearest airport and picked up an open ended round trip ticket to Tunis via Frankfurt and Paris. The soonest I could leave Denver was Wednesday afternoon. I made contact with an American Consulate named Gladys Moreau. Gladys was an angel of mercy and had gone to the hospital when the ship’s captain had called her. She said that the ship’s doctor had sent mom to the emergency room after she fainted on the streets of Tunis. I explained to her that the earliest flight I could get arrived Thursday night in Tunis. After 24 hours of travel, I arrived in Tunis. Tunis is a former French colony so you have two choices for language, French or Arabic. Since my French is bad and my Arabic non-existent, the challenge began. I was able to get a taxi and explain to the driver my situation. My french must be better than I thought because he immediately floored the cab and headed for the hospital. Turns out my french is bad and they all drive like that.  I got to the hospital and found mom’s room. Not too many old white women in Tunis hospitals. I walked in the room to find mom, packed and ready to go, sitting and chatting with Gladys! Seems that the ship’s doctor had completely overreacted and after a battery of tests, mom was fine. It wasn’t her heart as we had been led to believe but she had, in fact, after flying to Naples, Italy, sailing in rough seas across the Mediterranean, then walking around humid Tunis at 88 years old, simply fainted.

The doctor in charge had been by earlier and said that mom could leave that night but that we needed to clear it with the front desk. October is the month of Ramadan in arabic countries and trying to find anyone around who wasn’t at home stuffing their faces was next to impossible. We finally negotiated with the night clerk and promised to come by the next morning to pay the bill. They didn’t want her to leave without paying and it was 9 at night on a Ramadan evening. The billing office was closed and they thought we could just find the nearest ATM and clear things up. Gladys had made reservations at a great hotel and mom and I both collapsed for the night.

The next morning we went over to the hospital to pay the bill. Five nights in an american hospital including a complete work-up of blood tests and ECG’s would break the bank. Mom’s bill was $3,000US. No wonder a lot of french people come to Tunisia for health care. The hospital, while not quite as new and perfect as an american one, was a really nice place and seemed very capable of taking care of any needs. I negotiated in bad french and went to pay the bill with mom’s credit card. It was declined…..seemed to fit in with the trip thus far. Mine worked and we headed back to the hotel to get on with getting the hell out of there.

Mom is a seasoned world traveler. In her 88 years, she has been most places…twice. She had wisely bought travel insurance for the trip which would cover the costs of her new return ticket and my updated one. Even though mom was fine, the doctor was adamant that I fly back in the seat next to her. Works for me since she had flown over business class and I was cattle-trucked over here. It’s now friday afternoon Tunis time and I started the process with the insurance agent in New Hampshire who needed copies of the hospital bill and mom’s U.S. medical records. Mom’s doctor at home was in Hawaii. His nurse begins to fax 20 pages of medical records to the insurance company’s adjuster…….the wrong records. I get a call from the adjuster who says we have a problem. The records show that there is a history of heart problems and that they can’t cover the return trip. An hour later after two more faxes from me to the incompetent nurse and the adjuster, the correct records are in hand. It’s now Saturday afternoon, the insurance company has everything they need to make it happen so mom and I decide to take a “quick” tour of Tunis. The pictures you see were shot from the open window of a flying cab, which come to think of it, is probably the best way to see Tunis.

Sunday morning my phone rings. It’s the insurance guy and he has E-ticket numbers for mom and I to fly out tomorrow morning 8 am. Yes. In order for him to release the E-tickets, he needs a signed letter from the Tunisian doctor stating that I am to fly back next to mom. No! It’s sunday morning, it’s Ramadan and I’ve seen the doctor once since arriving. I realize that the chance of finding the doctor and actually communicating the need for his signature is nil. I start rummaging through the papers from the hospital and I find a small piece hospital letterhead with mom’s name on the top, some arabic chicken scratch and the doctors signature on the bottom. I write in the middle that due to ambulatory issues mom has to fly back business class and that I have to fly back in the seat next to her. I wrote a cover letter explaining that I had found the doctor, he couldn’t read or write english so I had translated. I faxed it all off and later that night the insurance company called with the E-ticket confirmation. Yes.

We left the next morning, Halloween, and arrived that night back in North Carolina. No shots were fired and after trading paint in Tunis, the extraction was a success.