Madrid, Spain - How do you tell someone that the unimaginable has happened in 120 letters and spaces? How do you tell them that the foundation of their homeland has been rocked when they are walking along a Madrid street 3,500 miles away?
The truth is that you can't, but you try. "Terrorists attack, four planes crashed, two into the WTC and one int..." and that was all my father was able send. With the rest of his message cut off, I walked blindly into a world that only terrorists, and those devoting their lives to finding them, may have contemplated before.
While America stopped working to gather around TVs with family and friends and watch the collapse of the Twin Towers, students at the International Institute in Madrid had to deal with the tragedy alone. When American students here tried to find that familiar face and comforting embrace of a best friend or significant other, they realized that everyone they loved was an ocean away, and possibly still in harm's way.
On Sept. 11, the hallways of the International Institute in Madrid were alive with students running back and forth trying to get reception on transatlantic cell phones. You could easily identify the New Yorkers, or anyone that had a loved one or friend who worked at the World Trade Center, simply by seeing faces turned red from crying.
But for the rest of the students, it felt more like a movie than an actual event. Little by little, more information trickled in, but never fast enough or complete enough to crystallize the events in our minds. "It seemed like a really sick sci-fi movie," junior Veenita Kaushik said. "It was almost like another terrorist attack somewhere else."
For a while, we looked for information on the Web, but it was impossible to log on to the CNN or New York Times websites the day of the tragedies.
Eventually, the program directors told us - in English no less, in itself a surprise - that a TV had been set up on the school's first floor. As the room filled up, many of us saw the images of the planes crashing in the WTC and of the collapse of both towers for the first time.
But the Institute only carried the news in Spanish, so we wandered around nearby hotels and bars in search of an English-language station. Finally, a mixed group of Tufts, Colgate, and NYU students assembled at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was generous enough to switch on the news in English while many students ate for the first time in hours.
In the days that followed, Tufts students in Madrid were consumed by the same emotions students on the Medford campus experienced. The majority of the people we encountered were sympathetic to our plight. Two weeks after the attacks, for example, I was walking through a small town north of Spain and a little old woman approached me to express her condolences for the US's tragedy.
Not everyone in the country was so compassionate, though. There were comments that appeared in the papers and on television from certain Madrile?±os who were happy for what had happened to the US. This minority sentiment so worried the directors of the nine schools represented at the International Institute in Madrid that they warned us about acting "too American" and speaking English in the streets.
As the days wore on, others in the Spanish press did not turn negative toward the US, but appeared more and more concerned about what American military reaction would be. Editorials in the newspaper El Pa?s called on the US to behave in a more globally-oriented fashion and act with restraint when launching its counter attacks.
Accompanying the editorial was a political cartoon depicting Uncle Sam driving a tank at breakneck speed with a blindfolded EU (European Union) character sitting beside him. In the cartoon, the EU figure asks Uncle Sam, "What do you want me to do?," to which Uncle Sam replies, "Sit still and be quiet."
As the third post-attack week comes to a close, students in Madrid are still thinking about what happened in NYC - but it is not foremost in our thoughts. The news programs no longer lead with stories about the attacks. And fewer and fewer students linger in front of the makeshift memorial on the Institute's third floor.
The major news story in Madrid for the last two days: AirEuropa held a fare sale of 50 percent off.
