Having read both Katie’s e-mails and Alison’s journal, two things came to mind for me. One is that even though I live so many thousands of miles away, I, as so many millions of people around the world would agree, no doubt, will never forget where I was on the 11th of September 2001. Where was I and what was I doing on the 12 of October 2003? The 26th of June 2005? Not a clue. But I can remember September 11 2001 like it was a few days ago. It was that huge, that profound a worldwide event. The second thing is that having seen the footage and the harrowing images of the faces on television on that day, I thought I had some tiny idea of what it must have been like. Of course I didn’t. Katie and Alison made that very clear to me. And I try to comprehend it by imagining a similar scenario. Walking through Sandton City Towers, perhaps, and hearing a loud explosion. I can’t. Even though, being in high school in the Eighties, in Johannesburg, meant things like the military doing mock terrorist attacks while we were in the hall during assembly, letting ‘thunderclaps’ off against the windows to see how we, the kids, would react and how well we would cope with an evacuation. Walking home from school one day with my best mate Dave, just about to walk into his block of flats, a car bomb went off in the basement parking, shattering all the windows of all the flats. It was frightening, and scary, but still, not as incomprehensible as what happened ten years ago. Unleashing an act of terrorism on unsuspecting civilians going about their daily lives is just so incredibly unfair and cowardly.

Thank you again Ed and Cassandra for posting these.