Do You Know What Today Is?

Today, I celebrate the two-week anniversary of my arrival in Spain while remembering the tragic terrorist attacks that hurt my nation six years ago. I can't believe it. First of all, it's hard to fathom that a lifelong dream has been realized. I'm in a new country, learning (or struggling with) a second language and culture. I'm eating foods I wouldn't have touched in the States (because I'm a picky eater) and I find myself giggling at the slightest of things just because of its novelty. For example, I smiled when I saw a Spanish brand of toothpaste. It's toothpaste! But here it's "crema dental," and that's so much more new and exciting.

But I will never look forward to the future days marked September 11. While eating paella, a popular rice and seafood dish, my host family and I looked at the local news anchor talk about 9/11. Everyone remembers where they were when they found out about the planes flying into the World Trade Center. My senora, Ines, remembers being home and having her eyes glued to the television for the rest of the day. She asked where was I, and my mind went back to the second floor of Kinston High School. My classmates and I were completing a lab assignment with the help of our Biology teacher, Ms. Dorcas Green. Other teachers ran in the class to tell Ms. Green to turn on the news. I was an ignorant ninth-grader who neither know what the World Trade Center was nor the aftermath its destruction would bring. I definitely know now. But we didn't celebrate this anniversary in Spain. It was quiet day. My compatriots and I didn't get in an Indian circle and cry. I didn't wear red, white and blue, or chant "U-S-A." I probably won't express myself in such ways anymore, but I'll always remember 9/11.