As you've probably been bombarded with memorial services and television specials ad nauseum for the past week, you don't need me to tell you that today marks the ten-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks. If you're anything like me, you're likely getting a little tired of the constant coverage, but this is an important day. In keeping with the spirit of the anniversary, here is my 9/11 story.
Back in September of 2001, I was two months shy of eleven. My parents had been commissioned as missionaries the previous summer, and we had moved to Costa Rica in January so my father could learn Spanish at language school. Richie and I were students at a small international school in the mountains, where I was in the fifth grade. That Tuesday started out roughly like any other. Richie and I got on our bus, went on our usual long ride to school, and headed to our respective classrooms. The fifth grade (all twenty or so of us, and we were a big class by Marian Baker standards) had art first thing on Tuesday mornings, so the first thing I knew anything was amiss, we were ensconced in the art classroom, busily working away on our various projects. Rumors must have been flying like mad, because our art teacher told us that the Empire State Building had been hit, not the World Trade Center. Class continued like nothing had happened, but I do remember going up to the teacher and asking quietly if the building had fallen apart and hurt people when the airplane went into it.
I don't remember many other details from that morning, apart from a general sense of unease among the teachers. The fourth and fifth grades had gym class together, and I heard my old fourth grade teacher having a tense conversation with someone else, perhaps my fifth grade teacher, Mr. K.
"Has anything else happened?" one of them asked.
"Bush made a speech," the other responded.
Finally, after lunch, Mr. K told us what happened. I cried. Looking back, I can't really explain why, but I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I was a sensitive little girl who was living out of her country for the first time, and acutely aware that something terrible had happened when I was far away. Many of my classmates were the children of diplomats and influential businesspeople, and probably had friends and relatives far closer to New York City and Washington, DC than I did. None of them cried, however, and they didn't understand why I was so upset (although truthfully, I didn't quite understand why I was so upset, either). Costa Rican Independence Day was fast approaching, and the fifth graders were learning a traditional dance, but I was allowed to sit out because I was still crying.
When I got home, my mother was sitting in the living room, watching the news. We only had basic Costa Rican television, which meant the few channels we did receive were all in Spanish. By that point in the year, however, my Spanish was fairly good, and in any case the video footage spoke for itself. My dad's language school, largely populated by Americans, held a vigil that evening, so we made our short walk over to the campus, where all the adults were somber. All the children were sent outside to amuse ourselves while the adults held their vigil. Some of us were old enough to have some understanding of what was going on, but others, like Josh, who was two, didn't have a clue. Josh had an airplane fixation even then, and while I'm not sure if he even knew that the news that day had been full of them, he talked of nothing but airplanes that night. So I sat on a hill with my brothers and the other children, eating sugar cane and listening to Josh's airplane noises and the singing of the adults.
I'm not sure how much I understood that day, but I remember reading every news magazine I could get my hands on in the Marian Baker library in the weeks that followed. It was around that time I became more politically conscious, although I may have been following the news casually even before the attacks. By the time of the invasion of Iraq a year and a half later, I was watching the news regularly and forming my own opinions about what I was seeing. I don't know if September 11 was the catalyst for my rapidly-growing awareness of the world around me, but it had a tremendous impact on my development nonetheless. For years I would get up early on the anniversary just to watch the memorial services, and while I have succumbed to 9/11 fatigue in college, I'm still fascinated by the stories from that day. Perhaps it's because I was out of the country and removed from the national atmosphere, to the point where I read about rather than experienced firsthand the fleeting but intense unity in the aftermath of the attacks. Perhaps it's because I was ten years old and just entering the world beyond myself. In any case, it is a day that will stay with me for the rest of my life. Did the world really change? Maybe. Did my worldview? Certainly.
