Remembering September 11, 2001

This day I woke up early and dressed in my "Sunday best" in order to head to the U.S. Embassy for a September 11th Commemoration.  Also, to prepare myself for going, I decided to watch some of the news footage from that day.  I remember where I was that day, as I'm sure all of you do, but I can honestly say that I didn't quite understand everything that occured.  I also don't remember the last night that I sat down and watched the news footage.  Now, I am ten years older and going back to watch the footage definitely has a greater effect on me.  If you haven't seen videos from that day in a long time, I encourage you to go back and watch them.  I was mesmerized for most of the day just watching video after video from that September 11, 2001.  I definitely spent a good amount of time watching footage rather than doing some homework.

Anyway, before I got to the embassy, I walked to Parque Kennedy to meet up with some other students and I decided I need to get out more on Sundays.  There were so many people in the park!  There was a huge group of people doing aerobics, many people biking/rollerblading/skateboarding, families walking, and fathers/sons playing a game that appeared to be a mixture between soccer and volleyball.

As we pulled up to the U.S. Embassy right away we noticed the security that was protecting us.  There were many people standing outside of the embassy as well as men on the tops of buildings across the streets.

U.S. Ambassador Rose M. Likins

"This tree grows in living commemoration of those lives taken in the
terrorist attacks ten years ago in New York, Washington D.C.,
and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  As we honor all victims of terrorism,
in nations around the world, so too we honor the resilience
of the survivors, families, and communities affected, on every continent."

I really enjoyed the commemoration as a whole and the remarks that our U.S. Ambassador said.  One of the things I most enjoyed though was the group of girls from the Villa María Miraflores School choir.  Some U.S. Marines presented the colors and the girls sang the United States National Anthem.  You kind of forget how much you miss seeing the American flag and hearing the National Anthem until you haven't seen it or heard it in awhile.  Plus, I really enjoyed the fact that a group of middle school Peruvian girls knew our National Anthem.  It was so calming to hear it.  They also followed it by the Peruvian National Anthem, which I hadn't heard yet before, so I really liked hearing them sing that as well.  Throughout the commemoration, they also sang "Amazing Grace" and "You Raise Me Up."  Both of these songs were also very relaxing to hear.  I'm not going to tell you a lot about the remarks of Ambassdor Likins, but some food for thought...I had never really thought about this a lot, but I learned that 90 nationalities were represented in the victims that died on September 11, 2001, five of which were Peruvians.  Two of the families were in attendance at the commemoration, which made me very happy/sad.  I can't even try to imagine what it would have been like to lose someone that day and my heart really does go out to everyone affected by that day.  Also, the tree (pictured above) was just planted on September 10, 2011 and the caption is what a plaque in front of the tree reads.  The type of tree (if I remember right) is a Mora peruana tree and Ambassador Likins made an analogy between the strength and resilience of the tree in the Peruvian weather with the families and communities affected by 9/11.  Okay, now on to the not so sad stuff...the former President of Perú, Alan García Pérez sat two rows in front of me. :)  He was just President a little over a month ago, so I thought that was pretty cool.  I mean obviously I didn't personally meet him, but he was there and I was closer to him than I have ever been to any U.S. president.  One more funny story, one of the girls from my program, Jen, dropped her sunglasses at the embassy and a man picked them up and handed them back to her.  She politely said, "Gracias" and the man replied, "You're welcome."  We both then began to chuckle because clearly the majority of the people there were US American and spoke English and here she was saying, "Gracias."  It was comical.

I really don't know what else to say about today except for the fact that it was nice to have some moments of American-ness.  I hope all of you were also able to commemorate September 11, 2001 at some point during your day and, if not, do it now.  Finally, I'll end with a happy note, for lunch I had a Lucuma (just so you remember Lucuma is a native fruit here) milkshake with my meal and it was delicious!