Advertisement
I didn't mean to do it, but I ended up reading the NY Times headlines online today (emailed to my inbox every day) and a link caught my eye, and I couldn't help but click on it. I think you guys would appreciate. I remember the next day of this tragedy like it was yesterday.... it was for me at least, my first 9/11 so to speak... .but without the whole rest of the country blinking an eye. For those of you who might not be aware, Kai's professor Dalizu's wife was killed in the Kenyan embassy bombings in 1998. She was the one american to be buried in Africa, with her family.
www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11...mathiu.html
Op-Ed Contributor
The Bus Stopped There
By MUTUMA MATHIU
Published: September 11, 2006
Nairobi, Kenya
ON Aug. 7, 1998, the day a Qaeda bomb murdered more than 200 people here, I was late for work. The bus route to my office goes right past the American Embassy in central Nairobi. Had I been on time, the bus I would have taken would probably have been the one destroyed in the blast as the driver waited for a light outside the embassy. Instead, I was two miles away.
I walked to my office, seemingly the only person headed for the heart of the city. The rest of Nairobi’s millions, it appeared, were getting out of it. The first wave was in panic but largely unhurt. Then came the bleeding multitude, confused, angry and wounded, followed by the bad cases, white with mortar dust, barely able to walk.
When I visited the scene of the destruction, hundreds of volunteers, oblivious to their own safety, were digging with their hands for survivors. I learned that day that the power of communities — in New York, in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian city that Al Qaeda bombed the same day — to fight and survive terrorism lay not just in law enforcement and emergency services, but in each individual’s selfless willingness to help.
Days later, I saw the bus I never took. It was sagging and looked in need of a tow truck. Mechanics fiddled with the junk and, to the amazement of a curious crowd, started it and drove it away, creaking and weaving. We smiled for the first time in a long time. It was a metaphor for our community: battered, damaged, defiant, but with life in us yet.
Mutuma Mathiu is the editor of The Sunday Nation newspaper
www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11...mathiu.html
Op-Ed Contributor
The Bus Stopped There
By MUTUMA MATHIU
Published: September 11, 2006
Nairobi, Kenya
ON Aug. 7, 1998, the day a Qaeda bomb murdered more than 200 people here, I was late for work. The bus route to my office goes right past the American Embassy in central Nairobi. Had I been on time, the bus I would have taken would probably have been the one destroyed in the blast as the driver waited for a light outside the embassy. Instead, I was two miles away.
I walked to my office, seemingly the only person headed for the heart of the city. The rest of Nairobi’s millions, it appeared, were getting out of it. The first wave was in panic but largely unhurt. Then came the bleeding multitude, confused, angry and wounded, followed by the bad cases, white with mortar dust, barely able to walk.
When I visited the scene of the destruction, hundreds of volunteers, oblivious to their own safety, were digging with their hands for survivors. I learned that day that the power of communities — in New York, in Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian city that Al Qaeda bombed the same day — to fight and survive terrorism lay not just in law enforcement and emergency services, but in each individual’s selfless willingness to help.
Days later, I saw the bus I never took. It was sagging and looked in need of a tow truck. Mechanics fiddled with the junk and, to the amazement of a curious crowd, started it and drove it away, creaking and weaving. We smiled for the first time in a long time. It was a metaphor for our community: battered, damaged, defiant, but with life in us yet.
Mutuma Mathiu is the editor of The Sunday Nation newspaper
posted by:
|
Columbus
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: I was just thinking about profe today
Mon, September 11, 2006 - 2:34 PMThanks Christine. I am often reminded of this event as well. It was a bit more of a shock to me too. I often remember those streets around the embassey as well. My current passport was issued from that embassey, so I am fairly familiar with the area.
I understand your avoiding the news today, I feel the same way, I don't need to be sucked back into something that we hear about constantly.
