When the American dream turned into a nightmare

Two weeks ago, when I boarded an airplane bound for Manila from Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C., it was against the advice of many of my American friends and family members. To the average American, the recent spate of news reports featuring kidnappings, beheadings and random crimes sketched the Philippines as a country much more hazardous than our own. Rather than cheerful wishes for a "Bon Voyage," I was deluged by a salvo of warnings and pleas to cancel my trip.

The sad irony is that over the past 24 hours, e-mails expressing extreme relief and that I am here and not there have been trickling in from these same friends.

A Filipino-American, I was born and raised in Washington D.C., but have been living in New York City for the past two years. I decided to come to the Philippines this year to visit family, learn the language, and live in my mother’s native culture. Watching the events of the attack on America unfold from halfway across the world has been a shocking and surreal experience.

On Tuesday night, my uncle was watching CNN on TV. He ran to the dining room where I was sipping coffee and made the shocking announcement that two commercial jetliners had slammed into the World Trade Center buildings. I rushed to the television, expecting to see the World Trade Center. I was instead confronted by the image of the Pentagon on fire. My parents and siblings live roughly seven miles away.

Minutes later, as the first World Trade Center Tower collapsed, I had the sickening realization that my college roommate’s husband of barely a year worked there. I dialed their phone number in Brooklyn. Busy. Hit redial. Busy. Hit redial. Busy. Hit redial. I dialed my parents’ home. At least 10 times. Busy.

CNN was now featuring the old Executive Office, shrouded in black smoke. My father works down the street, at the World Bank. I called my dad at work, but yet again, the line was occupied. I e-mailed him, and felt great relief when he replied within two minutes that he was fine and evacuating the premises. But my relief was fleeting – shortly after I read my dad’s response, my cousin delivered the news that it was believed that a fourth airplane had been hijacked and was headed toward the White House.

A very sour reprieve came again five minutes later when this plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Twenty long minutes later, my father called from his house, and assured me that he was safe. He had taken the subway home, but our next-door neighbor, worried about security on the subways, chose to walk seven miles home in the heat.

All telephone lines remained busy, so I e-mailed a friend in the States who I knew would be at work and asked him to call my friends in New York until he was able to get through. For the next few hours, I compulsively checked my e-mail as it was the only way to communicate to the States. I did not hear back from my friend who worked in the World Trade Center for hours. Thank God that when I did finally get a message from him, it was sent from France where he was fortuitously on vacation.

With the knowledge that my immediate family and friend were safe, I felt a small comfort. As I went to sleep that night, it never occurred to me that anyone else I know would be directly affected by the tragedy.

The next morning, I spoke with my sister in Washington. Surprisingly, I knew about the attack hours before she did. She was teaching in an elementary school, and somewhere a policy decision was made not to alert the children. Throughout the day, parents – particularly Arab parents – came to the school to collect their children. She learned about the situation at lunchtime, and had only six students left in her class when the final bell rang at 3 p.m.

My sister’s boyfriend Peter lives in New York City. When he woke up that morning he could see smoke from his window, turned on the television, saw the World Trade Center collapse, went to the garage near his building, got in a company car and drove to a hotel in Connecticut. His cousin, a husband and father, worked on the 95th floor of the World Trade Center and has still not been heard from.

Throughout the day, which would have been in the middle of the night in America, e-mails flooded my mailbox. Messages from friends I had not heard from for years came in, asking for prayers and assuring everyone that they were okay. I spoke with one friend, Chris, 25, a firefighter in the Washington D.C. fire department. He was called to duty to aid the rescue effort at the Pentagon. All available firetrucks were in use, so he and the other men were brought to the site on a municipal bus. Even though firefighters had been at the scene for 12 hours, the fire was still blazing inside. He made two trips inside the building to put out the fire and collect the charred bodies. The interior of the Pentagon, he said, was filled with "dead people burned beyond recognition." After a 12-hour respite, he will return again for a 24-hour shift.

The saddest news came from a friend in London. He had, by chance, selected to go there this week for a training session. Fourteen staff members from the New York branch of his company were attending a conference on the 106th floor of the second building that got hit. They are all still missing. With each hour that passes, hope for their survival diminishes. Now, 37 hours later, it appears as though they are all gone. My friend Oliver, a Brit that moved to New York about eight months ago, is among them. An affable, wise-cracker who loved cigarettes and would always give away the potato chips that came with his lunch, he has put a human face on this tragedy for me.

This type of situation is truly foreign to most Americans. Of all the citizens of the world, we have always traveled more freely than most, not needing visas, never thinking once – nevertheless twice – about security within our borders. But the recent events have proved to us that we have been living with unjustified hubris. We are not immune.

As unforeseen as two commercial jetliners slamming into the World Trade Center was, I cannot say that I was surprised that an attack was launched against America. In 1998, my father was working in Nairobi, Kenya when a bomb blew up the American Embassy there. I was in an Islamic country when an American ship, the U.S.S. Cole, was bombed in Yemen.

Over the past two years, I have had the unusual opportunity for a young American woman to travel through parts of the Arab world. At times, the vitriolic bitterness against Americans was palatable. At other times, the generosity and kindness of people I met was overwhelming.Thrilled to meet me, many Muslims welcomed me in their culture, calling me "Sister," walking me to my destination when I asked for directions, sharing food and tea.

Much of the Arab world has only limited access to economic development and thus, modernity. Some Muslims fervently believe that their economic situation is, in part, caused by oppression of American policy. Also, in the same way Americans would never tolerate foreign forces on their soil, some Muslims find American forces on their soil an egregious violation of their sanctity – particularly so because the US supports Israel, a regime they view to be a tyrannical, occupying power.

When I was in the Palestinian authority last year, I saw people subsisting on the margins of civilized life, crammed into living camps where disease and desperation are rife, medical care and adequate food, scarce. A five-minute walk away, Israelis drove to chic discos in flashy cars, enjoying an economic situation that is largely supported by annual $5 billion injections of aid from America. This inequity is a deprivation of spirit and material needs that most Americans will never comprehend.

Perhaps this incident will cause Americans to reflect upon how lucky they have been until now. Here in the Philippines, the poverty is jarring, especially for someone from the wealthiest country in the world. But even more stunning is the bright humanity of the people who live here. When news of the tragedy broke in this country, people I know stayed up all night to pray for America, those lost and their families. Despite our own problems at home, the Filipinos still devote their prayers and sincere thoughts to a far-away nation that has at times treated their own as a bartered bride. This is a testament to the beauty of our people, and what I came to witness and participate in during my stay here.