{fray} hope – missing pieces

Friday, September 15, 1995: Kisumu to Nairobi.

Attack on America

Audio Montages of pop songs with current news. Only Time by Enya is constantly being played on the radio here.

I’m still following the news about the attack, of course. You can’t just put that aside.

BBC News – Attack on America, FAZ.com, CNN, MetaFilter, Die Zeit.

Kenya

September 12, 1995

September 13, 1995

September 14, 1995

And some interesting sites:

• Kenya Beasts
• Kenya Birds
• Kenyalogy – travel guide in English and Spanish

The World

The World Factbook is a useful source of statisctical data about many countries. I found it while searching for info on Kenya.

Mathematics

Mathematica – a world of numbers… and beyond is an exhibition at the Exploratorium (Oct. 6, 2001 – May 5, 2002) in San Francisco. I would love to see it, but it’s a bit far from Bonn…

Languages – Sprachen

2001 ist das European Year of Languages, pardon – das europäische Jahr der Sprachen.

In der Zeit: Fremdsprache – Französisch statt Latein! “Zwei Fremdsprachen soll der moderne Europäer beherrschen. Doch davon sind die meisten Bundesbürger weit entfernt. Eine Bestandsaufnahme.”

Einen Artikel zum Thema gibt es auch beim Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft: Deutsche Schulen wenig polyglott.

Ich habe neben neun Jahren Englisch sechs Jahre Latein und drei Jahre Französisch gelernt. Heute würde ich wohl eine moderne Fremdsprache statt Latein wählen (bzw. mehr Gewicht auf Französisch als auf Latein legen), und ich hätte mich auch gefreut, wenn ich eine dritte Fremdsprache in der 9. statt erst in der 11. Klasse hätte beginnen können. Mein Englisch ist zwar ganz akzeptabel, aber mein Französisch reicht kaum zur Verständigung. Bücher lesen klappt mit viel Mühe, aber einer Unterhaltung oder einer Fernsehsendung könnte ich wohl nicht folgen…

Why?

Two days after the catastrophe I still can’t quite grasp the enormity of what has happened. The more I listen to the news on the radio and read websites, the sicker I feel.

So far, 5,000 persons have been reported missing, 4,700 of them in New York.

Against all hopes, five firefighters have just been rescued from the ruins, and two of them were even able to walk. Sorry, that turned out not to be true. The firemen were buried under shifting debris today (see CNN News).

The Deutsche Welle has info in English and German. Nachrichten auf deutsch gibt es außerdem bei der Zeit und im SWR3 Newsticker.

“Where were you when…?”: I was at home. I heard about the first plane on the radio shortly after in happened and thought, how can an accident like this happen? Didn’t the pilot see the building? I went online and checked for news. We don’t have a TV, so André and I then watched BBC World via webstream for hours. But even watching it while it was happening didn’t help me understand that it really happened. We saw the towers of the World Trade Center crumble and heard about the third plane at the Pentagon, and I was almost afraid to continue watching, not wanting but needing to know what was going to happen next at the same time.

In der Zeit

Jeder stirbt seinen eigenen Tod. “Die immer wieder abgespulten Schreckensbilder aus Amerika verdecken die einfache Wahrheit: Nichts ist kollektiv, alles ist individuell – auch die Qual der Opfer.” Von Robert Leicht.

“Hier sind viele, aber immer wieder einzelne Menschen ermordet worden. Und wahrscheinlich sterben in den Trümmern immer noch – auch in dieser Minute – welche vor sich hin. Während wir darüber reden.”

“Nicht bei uns”. Das Ende der Illusionen. Von Jane Kramer.

“Ich kenne keinen Fleck auf der ganzen Welt, wo die Distanz zwischen ‘bei uns’ und ‘nicht bei uns’ mit solcher Inbrunst geglaubt wurde wie in Amerika und wo dieser Glaube wider alle Wahrscheinlichkeit so unverrückbar war. “

Still speechless

I still can’t grasp what has happened yesterday. I can’t imagine that a few people have ideas like this and even worse, carry them out.

And I only begin to realize just how many people really have been killed or injured. Scheeßel (including the surrounding villages, in one of which I grew up) has about 12,500 inhabitants. Four times this many people work in the WTC every day, and noone knows how many of them were killed or injured in this horrible attack. And there were hundreds more in the Pentagon.

It’s hard to imagine that this means thousands of tragedies. How did the people inside the buildings feel when the planes hit? When the buildings toppled down? How desperate does one have to be to jump from a window on the 80 floor of the WTC?

What about the people on the planes? Some managed to call family or friends or 911. What do you say? What do you do if you’re the pilot of a plane that is being hijacked?

What about those many, many firemen and medical staff on the ambulances who already had arrived at the WTC when the towers came down and buried them?

What about all the people who know that relatives and friends were in or near the WTC and the Pentagon or on the flights?

I can’t begin to imagine how any of these people are/were feeling. My heart goes out to everyone.

So many questions remain: Who is responsible for this? What will the political consequences be?

I have no words…

I’ve been watching BBC World via the internet since less than an hour after the WTC was hit by the planes, and I don’t kow what to say.

I’m glad to read that your wife is okay, Craig.

Kenya

Monday, September 11, 1995: Last day at Samburu; return to Nairobi.

Aerial Photography

Did you recognize Audrey and Hal in this photo on the Mount Shasta page of the Great Plains KAP site? Hal linked to the site a couple of months ago, which I must have overlooked somehow. Thanks for letting me know, Hal!

Manila

I just flipped the home page for the first time since Manila on this server was updated to do quicker homepage flipping. Cool!

Remeber, I wanted this back in February 2000!

Also new: the stats index page.