NORTHAMPTON — A tour of the Amazon River basin offered to Smith College alumnae — offering both land and river excursions in Peru and a visit to Machu Picchu, known as the lost city of Incas — was scheduled to conclude Friday with the participants departing the South American country.
But with a state of emergency declared by Peruvian officials on Sunday due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the group of 32, including Dartmouth College alumni, spouses of the graduates and Smith anthropology professor Donald Joraleman, hasn’t yet been able to get a flight back to the United States, and instead is stuck, essentially in quarantine, in a hotel in Lima.
While there is continued uncertainty about how soon the group will be able to depart from Peru, members got their first sense of hope on Thursday evening.
Smith College spokeswoman Stacey Schmeidel said that Smith and Dartmouth have arranged for a charter flight. “I’m told that this should be resolved soon,” Schmeidel said.
Joraleman said on Friday that the group is in better spirits than it had been earlier in the week knowing a flight will be coming, and that getting in touch with Smith President Kathleen McCartney was successful.
“It’s important to note that this development is the result of pressure from our travel agency and the two institutions,” Joraleman said.
Joraleman said the claims by President Donald Trump that a military flight would be sent was not true, and that when the group finally leaves it will be in spite of his actions, not because of anything he did.
As of Wednesday, Joraleman said neither the U.S. government nor any commercial airline had been in touch, despite instructions for all foreign travelers, which include about 300 Americans, to get out of the country within 24 hours.
“No one is doing anything concrete to get us out of here,” Joraleman said.
Lima, a port city, has an international airport from where the group could depart. Without a flight home, the travelers have been mostly confined to their hotel rooms and only able to leave for essentials.
Joraleman said he had been concerned because some people in the party are elderly and others have preexisting health conditions.
Calls to the embassy, he said, were never returned, and the group heard nothing back from the U.S. State Department’s Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, or STEPS.
With many living in Massachusetts or New York, the group reached out to the offices of Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Edward Markey, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. One member even got in touch with a contact at the White House.
“Government has simply dropped the ball,” Joraleman said. “Government is doing nothing, they’re not providing any guidance and we’re not hearing anything from the embassy.”
“Airlines are canceling flights rather than making them available,” Joraleman said
Markey joined eight colleagues on the Committee on Foreign Relations in sending a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Wednesday expressing concern for the welfare of people stranded in Peru, as well as in Honduras, Morocco and Tunisia, to ensure that either commercial airline flights or charter flights be made available.
“While we are aware that department personnel around the world are under immense strain to meet the main demands related to COVID-19, the safety and health of American citizens, including facilitating returns to the United States, must remain paramount,” the senators wrote.
Their letter continued, “Americans overseas should have full confidence that the State Department will support them when abroad and facilitate their efforts to return to the United States if they are seeking to evacuate from areas affected by COVID-19.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
