It shook the en­tire world. Two bombs struck near the fin­ish line at the ever pop­u­lar Boston Marathon in April, killing three and in­jur­ing more than 144 per­sons. This news gripped the hearts of al­most every­one giv­ing them a re­minder of the at­tacks which took place on Sep­tem­ber 11th 2001 � a se­ries of four co­or­di­nat­ed ter­ror­ist at­tacks launched on the Unit­ed States in New York City by Is­lam­ic ter­ror­ist group al-Qae­da. The first ques­tion that ran through the minds of many on-look­ers here in Trinidad and To­ba­go was: "Could this be one such ter­ror­ist at­tack?" While we were busy dis­cussing this mat­ter, one of our fel­low Tri­nis liv­ing in Boston heard the cries and saw the pain that many ex­pe­ri­enced.

At the ten­der age of 22, Aman­da Sab­ga spoke about her ex­pe­ri­ence in Boston at such a gloomy time. Sab­ga, a Pho­to­jour­nal­ism stu­dent at Boston Uni­ver­si­ty in Boston and an in­tern at The Sun Chron­i­cle (a news­pa­per out­side of the city), told Wom­an­wise, "At the time of the ex­plo­sions I was in my apart­ment about one mile away from the end of the race with some friends." When asked what her re­ac­tion was like when the blast oc­curred, the stu­dent stat­ed "When I was ini­tial­ly told there were two ex­plo­sions in Cop­ley Square (where the Marathon fin­ish line is) I didn't con­nect the dots, I thought "wow, that's crazy. I won­der what hap­pened." And then it hit me, it was the day of the Boston Marathon."

Ac­cord­ing to http://www.belfast­tele­graph.co.uk "The Boston Marathon is the old­est an­nu­al marathon in the world and dates back to 1897, when it first ran af­ter in­spi­ra­tion from the 1896 Olympics event. It is con­sid­ered Amer­i­ca's most pres­ti­gious marathon, and draws com­peti­tors and spec­ta­tors from all over the world. It takes place to co­in­cide with Pa­tri­ots' Day every year, the third Mon­day in April, which com­mem­o­rates the an­niver­sary of the first bat­tles of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War. The spec­ta­cle reg­u­lar­ly at­tracts more than 20,000 par­tic­i­pants and 500,000 spec­ta­tors each year and the fi­nal mile of this year's event was ded­i­cat­ed to vic­tims of New­town shoot­ings."

"While I was not at the scene of the blast," Sab­ga con­tin­ued, "from what I un­der­stand and from talk­ing to peo­ple who were there, the ini­tial re­ac­tion was con­fu­sion. Most peo­ple did not think the worst, they thought it was some sort of cel­e­bra­tion or maybe a sew­er ex­plo­sion but when the sec­ond blast went off I think the re­al­i­ty set in that this was some­thing more than a cel­e­bra­tion or ac­ci­dent. Most peo­ple di­rect­ly at the scene screamed and ran to safe­ty, there were def­i­nite­ly el­e­ments of chaos but many of those who were will­ing and able ran to the res­cue and aid of those in need."

Asked why she de­cid­ed to go to Boston, Sab­ga re­lat­ed "I de­cid­ed to go to Boston for a few dif­fer­ent rea­sons, most­ly be­cause of the rep­u­ta­tion the city has as be­ing a great col­lege en­vi­ron­ment. I want­ed to be in a big city but not some­where as over­whelm­ing as New York, and Boston had a num­ber of schools with good com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­grammes, name­ly BU. Hon­est­ly, I had nev­er been to Boston be­fore my ac­cep­tance to col­lege here."

With the re­cent bomb­ings though, does Sab­ga feel safe there? When ques­tioned on this mat­ter the 22-year-old in­sist­ed, "Yes I do feel safe in Boston. I feel re­as­sured by the com­mend­able work that was seen by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and the way the city came to­geth­er as a com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing this try­ing time."

There are two sus­pects, broth­ers Dzhohkar and Tamer­lan Tsar­naev. One, Tamer­lan, was killed in an at­tempt­ed get­away the oth­er is in cus­tody and re­cov­er­ing from a bul­let wound to the throat but has com­mu­ni­cat­ed to of­fi­cials that he and his broth­er were re­spon­si­ble for the at­tack and for the death of a Mass­a­chu­setts In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy po­lice of­fi­cer.

So what are her thoughts on the Boston at­tacks? Posed with this ques­tion, 22-year-old Sab­ga stat­ed, "I'm not en­tire­ly sure how I feel about the at­tacks, it is not some­thing I would have ever seen com­ing. These kinds of events can nev­er be ex­pect­ed, and I don't think any­one be­lieves it will hap­pen to them, to their city or to their home. Boston is and has al­ways been a safe city to me and to all of its res­i­dents. I don't think these at­tacks will change the way peo­ple feel about the city and I be­lieve it has on­ly made the peo­ple of Boston stronger and more unit­ed."

Such uni­ty was demon­strat­ed im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the at­tack and even to­day. Sab­ga ex­plains "Ini­tial­ly af­ter the at­tacks the mood was very somber, the en­tire city and even the state of Mass­a­chu­setts came to­geth­er host­ing dif­fer­ent events and re­li­gious ser­vices to the vic­tims and those af­fect­ed by the at­tacks. Now things have be­gun to set­tle and some nor­mal­cy has re­sumed but I do feel as though the mood re­mains some­what solemn and there are still a num­ber of signs and memo­ri­als in ho­n­our of those af­fect­ed. The most promi­nent memo­r­i­al is at the scene of the at­tack and while I be­lieve the street has been re-opened now, there is a con­stant dis­play of flow­ers and mes­sages of hope, courage and brav­ery. There is a char­i­ty which has been start­ed called 'One Fund' in ho­n­our of the vic­tims and those af­fect­ed. Of the three peo­ple who died, I know that there are some in­di­vid­ual memo­ri­als be­ing put in place, for ex­am­ple, in ho­n­our of Lingzi Lu who was a grad­u­ate stu­dent at BU, there is a schol­ar­ship be­ing of­fered in her name."

Aman­da Sab­ga, a Tri­ni in Boston, was al­so seen on The Sun­day Lon­don Times. Her pho­to had been picked up by the Sun­day Lon­don Times af­ter the sec­ond sus­pect was ar­rest­ed. "On Fri­day evening in cel­e­bra­tion of the cap­ture," she re­lat­ed to Wom­an­wise "hun­dreds of Boston stu­dents and res­i­dents ran through the streets to a park in the heart of the city where they ral­lied and sang in cel­e­bra­tion."

So does she think the peo­ple of Boston can ever get past this in­ci­dent? Sab­ga, the ev­i­dent­ly ma­ture thinker in­sist­ed, "I do be­lieve the peo­ple of Boston will over­come the events of the Boston Marathon, and I be­lieve that this process has al­ready be­gun. An ex­am­ple of this is that all of the city's busses have been pro­grammed with mes­sages of en­cour­age­ment such as 'Boston Strong' and 'We are one Boston'."

Ques­tioned about her fu­ture in the city that has been hurt, Aman­da Sab­ga dis­closed, "I hope to stay in Boston and work in the near fu­ture, I am not sure how long I will stay here or where I will be next but I love the city and would be hap­py to stay here."

She then sent a mes­sage out to her fel­low Tri­nis. Sab­ga said "Any­thing can hap­pen and life is short, we should cher­ish our op­por­tu­ni­ties, re­la­tion­ships, friends and fam­i­ly and nev­er take those slice-of-life mo­ments for grant­ed."

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