Holed Up In Munich

I am quite lonely without my new Egyptian friends and Paki at the border. It was a hot, sticky night in Cairo and I am now tired. Last night's report from Paki was about a Palestinian family stuck at the border with a grandmother who is in kidney failure, traveling with her son, the potential donor for a transplant, and his son and wife. They were refused flight from Cairo to France where the needed surgery is available. While waiting in the heat and in an attempt to get water, the grandson was hit by a soldier, the father defended his son, and was then taken to a "back room". The horrors of human behaviors. When the soldiers were told that the woman could die with this medical condition and no help, their response was "let her die".

But this morning my birthday present before leaving Cairo was a phone call from Paki reporting that there is hope for getting the family to France right away. Jean, one of our "saints at the gate" lives in France and has worked many years at the International Red Cross. She will be pulling strings to save another life at the Rafah border. We are not sure what happened to the man with diabetes and a recent leg amputation. These are crimes against humanity.

So I blog from my hotel room in Munich; I feel like a stranger in a strange land. There are sex shops down stairs, tall, young German men walking in tough groups, and Muslims walking with their family members. I feel tension here too. I picked up a piece of pizza for dinner from a Kurdish man working at the shop and was able to revisit Sorani, much to his delight. I stopped in at the Cathedral of St. Michael on Neuhauser Street to say a prayer of gratitude and the interior was stunning. We were soon shooed out of the church promptly at 7:00PM. I will catch my flight to London tomorrow and look forward to being part of a beloved community once again.