9/11 September 2001 by Maggie Castro

From MemoryArchive

Who: Maggie Castro
What: 9/11
When: September 2001
Where: Lima, Peru

I was 13 years old when Tuesday 11th 2001 happened. I went to an all girls catholic school. It was about 9:30 am when we had finished our math class and we were waiting for the next teacher to come. In Peru we dont move around classes, the teachers do. It was weird because our teacher was late by almost half an hour. My class was happy. We were making noise, writing on the board, playing and running in the class. Just like anyother day would have been if our teacher was running late. The class we were waiting for was Religion,which is a class that is all about the bible. Sister Mercedes was late and we were more than happy because we didnt like that class, it was very boring. That day it was my friend Denise's day to pray. We always start class with a prayer, and it was her turn. I remember she was getting ready to read a passage from the bible and had written down the petitions.

Finally sister Mercedes showed up. She wasnt her usual self. She looked different in the sense that nobody saw her come in, and she did nothing to stop us for the while she took to leave her stuff in her table. After she left her stuff, everyone notice her because it just got very quiet. She told us that she was going to do the prayer that day, because something terrible had happened. She told us that there were terrorist in the United States, they had attacked New York and Washington. Everyone stayed quite and we didnt understand. However, my friend Denise did. She was in shock, almost fainted and then started crying. She had her father living in Washington for 3 months. She was so worried she wanted to go home. Sister Mercedes, told us that we should pray for the victims, for there were many. I was sad, but i still didnt understand what was going on. Sister Mercedes never turned on the tv. I left school that day, like any other day. It was a normal day for me, with the exception that i knew something bad had happened. I didnt realized to what extent it was, until in swimming practice everyone was talking about it.

When i got home, all the channels were giving the same news, and that is when it shocked me. I dint realize how big this was, i didnt even know what the Twin Towers were or that they were in New York. My family was together watching the news in the small tv my grandma has in her room. My grandma was praying saying "God help those poor victims" i could tell she was devastated. All of us watched, in silence, the horrifying videos of the towers going down and much worse the people trying to get out. In peru, they were trying to understand what had really happened, why were there terrorist doing this. There was no answers in that day, just the same videos and pictures repeating over and over. The next day, everyone kept talking about it. My friends were coming up with different theories for why did such thing happened. In the news that day, there were people looking for their lost father, mother or sister. What made it worse, was that there were many peruvians working that day on the towers. Those peruvian's families were on the news for the rest of the week, stating that their son or daughter hadnt call them and so they were worried.

I know that when i first found out about 9/11 i didnt understand very much. I wasnt aware of to how much extent it was. When i arrived in America a year later, i realize how important this was for all of those who were here during that day. How unsafe they felt and how maybe for the first time, they wanted to be with their family.