Rob and Sarah Prescott were working at an international school and living with their two children in Tripoli when many Libyans rose up against longtime dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. When the unrest turned violent, the family had to flee the country on a journey that took them through four countries on six different modes of transportation to make it back to American soil.
Many of the Prescotts’ friends on Chebeague didn’t sleep well until word arrived they were safe.
“Everyone was freaked out, the whole island was worrying,” said Beverly Johnson, who runs a website for news on the island.
Since returning to U.S. soil, Sarah Prescott has posted a detailed narrative of the family’s escape from Libya on the family’s wiki webpage. The page’s structure shows just how quickly the situation deteriorated. The posts quickly go from a travel blog about questionable driving to a harrowing account of escaping on a ferry though rough seas.
The family, who summer on Chebeague, had lived abroad in six countries before their seven-month stay in Libya. They worked at international schools as teachers, librarians and in technology positions.
When two posts opened up at an international school in Libya, the Prescotts spoke with U.S. government officials and were assured that Gaddafi was firmly in control of the country. The couple had no illusions about life under a dictator, but they thought the situation seemed stable.
“We had lived in the Middle East before,” said Sarah Prescott in a phone interview from her temporary landing spot in Venice, Florida. “We’ve done this for 12 years and this is the first time this has ever happened.”
In fact, the Libyan government seemed just as surprised as the Prescotts when the unrest in Egypt and Tunisia spread to the streets of Libyan cities.
On February 20, the Prescotts began to receive emails from friends in Libya who were feeling the gathering unrest. The family went from planning a day at the beach to mapping out escape routes that would avoid possible angry mobs in the streets and wild dogs in the back country.
The Prescotts eventually gathered together with other staff at the international school. Amidst intermittent phone service and spotty news reports, school staff began to scramble to find ways out of the country.
On February 22, word came that the American embassy would charter a ferry to Malta. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. The family huddled together on the ferry with other American families for two days, due to bureaucratic and weather delays.
On February 25, the decision was made to face the stormy sea in order to escape the deteriorating political situation. The passengers were handed Dramamine as the ferry engines started.
The ferry hit the whitecaps as passengers heard the first strains of the opening music of Star Wars, the movie playing for their entertainment. The trip went downhill from there.
Most of the passengers quickly became sick. Rob Prescott, who worked as an EMT with the Chebeague fire department, jumped to help passengers in the ship’s bathroom. In one poignant passage of the family’s story, a semi-conscious Sarah becomes dimly aware of her husband pausing to be sick before going back to help other passengers.
“There’s nothing like being in a bathroom that’s going six different directions at once with no horizon and you’re forced to look down [to help people],” Rob recalled in a phone interview.
The family arrived in Malta, but the situation was far from easy. All flights out of the country were booked or were subject to price-gouging.
Eventually, the couple booked a train that was ferried off the island to Sicily. The family then made its way up to Rome. There they got a taxi to the airport, but not without some on-the-fly sightseeing.
“We woke the kids up and said, ‘Look, there’s the Coliseum,” said Sarah.
From there, the couple flew to Madrid and then to Florida to stay with relatives. They are still trying to rescue the family cat with the help of a Libyan veterinarian. The children are enrolled in school in Florida for the time being.
The oldest child, Seth, has chosen to write a letter to President Obama pleading for the U.S. to intervene on behalf of the rebels. His attitude mirrors those of his parents. Sarah believes the U.S. missed a critical opportunity to help.
“We’re in shock and I think we’re kind of saddened by the whole thing, as well,” Sarah said.
Island friends also are recovering. Sandra Birkett, a longtime friend, says she spent a week sleeping poorly and crying often. She also fielded phone calls from many islanders asking for information. When she received word the Prescotts had made it out of Libya, the crying didn’t stop.
“Now we were crying tears of joy,” Birkett said. “It is still all very fresh and we still miss them.”
It’s no surprise to the Prescotts’ friends that the couple is once again looking for work in international schools. There is a favorite quote on their webpage from St. Augustine that explains their decision:
“The world is a book/If you do not travel,/You read only a page./Travel calls to those who seek/all that the world has to offer.“