saying ‘Hello !’ to his collegues in New York.
FDNY vs. NYFD
This little guy started teaching me his mother language word wise when he was 2 and something. In Senegal people speak many languages. But the two major ones are Wolof and French. He spoke Baby Wolof and I spoke French to him. He certainly realized that I needed to learn Wolof, so he started giving me lessons. If I did not pronounce a word accurately, he told me : ‘Déedéet’ (= no) and with a gesture of his hand, he made me repeat the word again.
I taught him French. As a young kid (2-4) he was very talkative. But only with me. He let me enter his secret garden, telling me, for instance, about the girl he liked. We had very important discussions. The Senegalese adults who could hear us chatting so vividly wondered how we could have so many topics. We were most of the time together, on the road, in African and in European restaurants, eating fried fish with the fishermen at the beach, gardening together, looking for shells in the sand, feeding the dogs Souffrance, Pick Up and Diola.
Tags: 9/11, airplane, anniversary, fdny, fire, firefighter, new york, nyfd, sapeur pompier, senegal, usa, world trade center
September 13, 2008 at 5:07 am |
Nice to see you’re still blogging. Don’t know if you remember me, but I’m gonna be blogging again for a while. I’m looking forward to reading your posts.
September 13, 2008 at 4:13 pm |
I’m very pleased to know him! He looks so happy.
But a fireman… posted on September 11… Wowww.
September 14, 2008 at 12:19 am |
Hi Martin,
Sure. I still remember you. I’m so happy to see you here today. I hope you’re doing very fine. Yes, please, do blog again. This is the best decision ever. See you soon.
September 14, 2008 at 8:06 am |
Hello Ajax,
One year before 9/11, I was at the World Trade Center Path station heading to New Jersey, many meters down street level. I was thinking: “Hopefully I won’t be on this very spot should the huge building fall down”. It was such a scary thought. I imagined what I could possibly do if… One year later, two weeks before 9/11, I was there again. Same scary thought. No idea why it came up to my mind. Then I took off to Munich.
On 9/11, I was watching TV while some friends were trying to install my new DSL connection. The first plane already hit a tower. Then I got a phone call from New York. “Switch on your TV. The Twin Towers are being hit.” Very sad memories.
From a large window on the 43rd Floor of a big tower located on Fifth Ave, I used to say ‘Hello’ and ‘Good night’ to the Twin Towers.