On Friday 15th March at 1:40 pm, those close to the mosque on Deans Ave, ushered fleeing mosque goers to safe spaces, while others ran to climb the walls. At the time of the shooting I was showing Michael Moore's film, Bowling for Columbine, to my Year 13 English class for their first assessment. At the end of the lesson the film was playing archival footage of the massacre. Students were huddled in the school library when the door opened and the two shooters entered, picking off kids while others fled for their lives. In real time in Christchurch a shooter was filming his atrocious crime, devastating many lives and creating ripples which spread into New Zealand society, taking away our innocence and changing the way we looked at ourselves.
At the end of the lesson I finished off some work before heading home, planning to catch a plan to Womad. I glanced at an email and a text from Boys' High telling me they were in lock down. I joked with a colleague on the way out, Boys' High had been in lock down not that long ago. The smile moved to the other side of my face when our lock down siren sounded. I was going downstairs and sped up to get my bike. Knowing I had a plane to catch, I grabbed the bike and bolted. Past management waving people into B block, past a senior manager waving people back the gate. "I'm catching a plane," I called over my shoulder. I felt conflicted but my mind was set on catching a plane.
I was surprised to find Kahu at home. He was loading a shoot em up game on his play station. That morning I had driven him to school for a Geography field trip. On the car we listened to an interview with a Syrian boy reflecting on his first year in Dunedin. "You don't know how lucky you are." My comment to the boy sitting beside. Born in a peaceful country, permitted an innocent childhood.
The field trip had finished early so Kahu walked home. "You'd better turn on the TV," I told him. "There's something going on." My mind reverted to my original plans so I drove to the beach. It felt weird: silent, still, quiet. Sparse traffic. I turned on Radio New Zealand. Jesse Mulligan was talking to a woman who said her husband and son were at Al Noor but they were not answering the phone. She didn't know what had happened and was waiting.
At North Beach two women were finishing a walk. Normality. But the silence behind me was building. I turned RNZ on as I drove home. Jesse was interviewing a man in Lynwood describing something that didn't make sense- police, a man, worshippers. Jesse kept asking questions but the picture was fuzzy.
At home Kahu was watching live coverage. Unfolding developments. The images on the screen started putting the picture together. But two shootings at mosques some distance from each other was confusing. There must have been two gunmen.
College Ave was lined with anxious parents in cars waiting for their children who were in lock down. It was the same all over the city. Children locked in schools, herded together for safety; parents waiting and exposed to danger, unwilling to leave their children. I would have been locked down too. I felt guilty but knew my presence would have added no more than an extra body. It was a waiting game.
I'm still in Womad mode but I can't leave Kahu. He organises to stay with a friend who will pick him up. My friend, Bernie, arrives to take me to the airport. We watch some footage from inside the mosque. Ten seconds is enough. I see bullets flying out of a gun down a corridor. I don't understand what I'm seeing.
At the airport there are police holding very big guns. In the Koru Lounge there's a buzz, passengers swopping news. Flights are leaving and mine to New Plymouth is on time. It's not until I get to the departure lounge that the board shows a delay. It's not till I ask, that I find out the flight is cancelled.
I go home. In the right place. It doesn't feel right to leave my city with such tragedy.
Womad 2019 was overshadowed by the enormity of the shootings. This year the threat of Coronavirus hangs over the festival. Friday headline act, Ziggy Marley, has cancelled. Womad 2020 is going to be the last big event for a while.
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