Tragedy in Rome

I've been learning a lot while I've been in Rome and God has definitely been putting a lot of things on my heart in my new home. Today was definitely no exception. Many of you in the United States may be slowly reading the news about the metro accident here in Rome. For me it is the first time that a world news story has happened so close to home and that I've been in a sense directly affected by it. If you haven't heard the news, during the morning rush hour two trains underground collided killing 1 and injuring another 60, about 10 seriously. For good reason, many people panicked that the occurence was due to terrorism. Although terrorism was not the cause, the exact reason for the accident is still not certain.

I take this specific metro every morning to get to my University. Fortunately, I take the metro south from my closest station. The crash happened at 9:30 am about 4 stops north of my station, in the heart of the center of Rome. I got underground at my station at about 10 am and I noticed a rush of a lot of people. I figured it was just a bunch of tourists that were lost because many people travel north on the metro from a smaller airport. I went to the line where the metro travels in the the direction of Ananigna, the last stop close to my University. Some lady told me the metro for Ananigna was on the other side, which is usually for metro in the direction of Battistini, the last stop on the other side (north). So from my little Italian knowledge, I gathered that due to some malfunction near the center, the metro was only traveling between my stop and Ananigna, which was fortunate for me. It wasn't till I got to my desk at work and turned on the internet that I realized the severity of the malfunction.

In a sense, I was overwhelmed. Because of the generosity of Italians here, I feel like Rome is very much my city as it is theirs. On the metros everyday, you see all kinds of people from the very young to the very old, to the rich to the beggars of the city. My heart ached for the people with whom I usually share part of my day with on the metro. Seeing a very elderly woman being rolled off on a stretcher just made me sad. The event allowed me to understand how people felt in NYC, Madrid, and London. All day, foreigners especially received phone calls from their family and friends to make sure all was OK. I'm very glad that the result wasn't worse. I'm also glad that the time here is ahead of the United States so I was able to e-mail and message friends and family before they would hear of the news on tv or the internet. All in all, I am safe and the only real effect to me is that my travel to my University was a bit delayed as things were being figured out.