The Day The World Turned Upside Down

Today, two years from the date of the tragedy we now call ŝ/11", the memories of that terrible day came flooding back.

I have spent today thinking how much the world has changed since that day. How much my life has changed in just two short years. September 11 was one of those days we will never forget where we were, who we were with, or how we heard the news.

I was driving back from taking a client to view a house I was selling in Harare, Zimbabwe. The client, Roger, loved the house, was talking excitedly to me about the changes he was going to make to the house when the deal was signed. I was delighted - if the sale went through it would be the most expensive house the Estate Agency I worked for had ever sold. A real feather in my cap! And the fact that the purchaser and seller were such nice people, meant the sale would be concluded successfully.

Suddenly Roger's car slowed, lost power and the engine cut out. One of Zimbabwe's many problems was a fuel crisis, still in its infancy at that time. His car, a very expensive, sleek, silver BMW was supposed to run on unleaded fuel, which was now not available. The sensitive engine did not run well on the regular, ethanol-based fuel now being sold. Laughing because this was a frequent occurrence, Roger said we had to wait just five minutes until the fuel pump cooled. As we were chatting my cell phone rang. It was my friend, Martin, an international foreign journalist based in Zimbabwe.

"Hello, Martin", I said.

Martin, in his brisk, journalistic fashion, did not return the greeting. He was speaking very quickly.

"Just want to tell you that two aeroplanes have been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Centre," he replied. "The buildings are on fire - it's absolutely dreadful. You cannot believe what I'm seeing on television."

I was stunned - at first I couldn't think where the World Trade Centre was. All I could manage was a feeble: "You have got to be joking."

"This is going to change the world forever," Martin said. "Could be the beginning of a Third World War. Where are you?"

"Stuck on a road with a client," I said, in complete disbelief.

Telling me he had to go, Martin disconnected the call. I gave Roger the news. He was horrified, and immediately used his cell phone to call a friend to verify the facts. I called my mother, who hadn't heard the news yet. I told her to turn on her television, and at that moment Roger managed to start the car.

I had a hollow feeling in my stomach. My husband was in America, and had flown from New York to Atlanta the previous morning. I had established from calling friends while we were waiting that another few planes had been hijacked, but no one knew where they were going. One had flown into the Pentagon. I started to panic. Perhaps I'd got the date wrong - maybe he'd only left this morning. Was I wrong? Perhaps he wasn't going to Atlanta. Suddenly the day took on an unreal feeling, and I felt very small and very frightened.

After Roger dropped me at my car at his office I drove quickly back to my office. Rushing inside I found everyone packing up to go home at least an hour early. The dreadful news had traveled fast. Everyone was shocked. Zimbabwe in Africa was thousand of miles from New York, but the emotions and pain of that day covered the globe.

I went straight home, and en route called my mother again for an update. She was absolutely stunned, and speaking very quietly, so great was her shock. I will never forget her comments to me:

"There are people jumping out of the building windows, falling hundreds of stories to the ground. They're jumping because they cannot get out of the building."
"People on the street are screaming."
"The reporters are so shocked they don't know what to say - they're speechless."
"The second building has just collapsed in on itself. It's too terrible."

As I got home my husband's boss called me. He assured me that my husband had indeed left New York on Monday, September 10, 2001. They knew he had arrived in Atlanta from an email he'd sent the previous day. The lines to America were all down, but they'd let me know if everything was alright. I put down the phone, relieved. Deep inside I knew the date of his departure had been correct. But that day the world turned upside down, and nothing seemed real.

When I turned on my television all three news channels on our satellite system - CNN, BBC and Sky News - were showing the footage. And it was dreadful. The usually professional, slick news coverage of all three stations was still organized, but there was an element of despair and confusion in the coverage. So much was happening nobody knew how to make sense of it all. Nobody could understand why anyone had done this terrible thing. Everybody was frightened.

One of my lasting impressions of that dreadful day is of the second plane, flying into the second tower like a knife into butter. Even today it is such an unreal, terrible sight it does not seem real. The people falling to their deaths rather than waiting to be burned alive or buried in the rubble. The firefighters dying as the Towers collapsed. The hole in the ground in Pennsylvania, where the plane hit the ground with such force there was nothing left. The hole in the side of the Pentagon. The President's face when the news was whispered in his ear. And afterwards. All the pictures of missing people, the recordings of the final telephone calls to loved ones.

It doesn't matter where anyone was in the world - we all felt the pain and sorrow of that day, and the days that followed. And two years later the pain is still raw. In two years the world has changed. My life has changed too. Zimbabwe's financial and humanitarian crisis has deepened, and I no longer live there. I've moved to Europe, to a supposedly more stable, safe environment, leaving behind my family and my friends. Is it really safer? Yes there is law and order here, lots of food in the shops and a stable currency. But the threat of international terrorist attacks is far greater in Europe than in Zimbabwe.

We must never forget what happened on that day. We owe it to all the innocent people who died - in the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, the passengers and crew on the aeroplanes. And the people who rushed to help those in the Twin Towers, and lost their lives in the process. We owe it to their families to remember that day forever.