9.11.2001, from Guyana

Students, Johanna Cecilia Community High School                    photo by Kristen Hare

by Kristen Hare
Guyana, 2000-2002

     Lunch time at Johanna Cecilia Community High School, and I plodded across the dirt, over the road, through the big white gate, up the stairs to my house. Every day during lunch, I could hear kids laughing and cars passing through the bars that laced over my open windows.
     On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I followed the same route. Made lunch. Opened a book. Then, a voice rose up from outside.
     "Miss Kristeen," the girl called. "Miss Kristeen."
     I stepped onto my verandah, annoyed at being interrupted during my few quite, totally private and American moments each day.
     "Miss Kristeen, Miss Pauline says you must turn on your TV," my student said.
     That was it.
     And so I walked over to the large television that my school let me borrow when they didn't need it and clicked on.
     I sat down.
     You know what I saw. You saw it, too.
     I didn't move from my couch for days. Not until all the channels that pirated CNN's constant coverage returned to long toilet paper commercials and local death announcements. Not until the Peace Corps called us all in for an emergency safety meeting. Not until I had to return to school and address everyone, telling my Muslim, Hindu and Christian students that I didn't think Muslims were bad, that I didn't know anyone who had died, and that I couldn't explain what we'd all seen.
     That weekend at the open-air market, every old auntie selling fruit and vegetables stopped me and asked after my family.
     Tell them you're safe with us, they all told me.
     Tell them we're all watching your house.
     Tell them we'll protect you.
     My memories of 9/11 aren't American ones. They're from the outside. Disconnected. Devestated. But, still, surrounded with a village of people who hardly knew me and looked after me anyway.