Originally Posted by bennytma

A friend of mine who runs a non-profit here in NY just emailed me saying that one of their colleagues Sophia is stuck at Schipol. She is a 65+ y/o Rwandan from rural Kenya who only speaks Kiswahili and has never traveled by air before. She has no phone, no credit card and only 16 Euros on her. That was before she got stuck in the volcano madness at Schipol so she is probably broke by now. Attempts to get DL, KL, the police, the Kenyan Embassy to help have all failed. Please PM me if you know someone inside Schipol who would be willing to help locate her and pass her a message. I know many people have been affected by this travel disruption so many thanks in advance for anyone willing and able to help out. Below is the msg I received with more details. Ben

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Hi all -- Some of you have heard bits of this story and are already trying to help. It's now at the just-try-anything point, though, so --

We're trying very hard to find someone -- anyone -- who's among the 2000 air travelers stranded inside the Amsterdam airport, and would be willing to accept a cell phone call, locate a missing person in the airport, and get a message to her.

Sophia is 65 years-old and from rural western Kenya. She speaks no English and has been stranded at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam now for over a day and a half. She has never traveled by air, speaks Kiswahili only, does not have a cell phone that works outside of Kenya, has very little cash and no credit card. She made the decision to travel alone to attend her daugher Agnes's university graduation in Halifax, Nova Scotia, equipped only with letters written in English that say things such as, "I am lost and don't speak English. Please direct me to flight XXX..." and "In case of emergency, please call my daughter's cell phone #: +1 902 XXX XXXX. We haven't been able to reach her, and don't know whether she is aware of the volcano and what's going on. She had 16 euros with her when she landed, and had a layover of 11 hours BEFORE her flight from Amsterdam to Toronto was cancelled, so she is probably out of money. She has never operated a pay phone.

She has now been tentatively rebooked, on KLM/Delta Flight 671 to Montreal at 2:45 pm tomorrow (provided the European airports reopen), but we have no way of getting the information about her new flight to her.

We've contacted friends who live in Amsterdam (turns out they're also stranded, but in a different city) and we're sent an email to a group of activists in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, if you live in Amsterdam and don't have an airline ticket, you can't get inside the airport -- and there's no one at the ticket counters waiting to help....

Every effort has been made to get some authority to locate Sophia in the airport and bring her to a phone where she could speak with Agnes in her own language, receive instructions and assure us that she's okay: the KLM, Delta, airport personnel, airport police, Kenyan embassy... none are willing to walk around near the gate where Sophia is likely to be, or to make an announcement to help us to locate a Kiswahili speaker somewhere in the airport who might help. No doubt she could be easily located near the gate where she landed, or at the gate where her next flight was to depart. We have a digital photo of her, and could email to anyone willing to look for her.

A desperate question, but: Do you know anyone who's stranded in Amsterdam, or know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone whose Facebook friends or Twitter followers might be there? Kiswahili speaking would be ideal, but really, ANY kind soul who'd be willing to talk to us and then search for Sophia would be great. Thanks a lot.


(apologies for cross-posting here and in DL forum. moderators if you have to delete one of the two posts or merge them, i understand.)