‘I shouldn’t have been there’ – NWU Director recalls 9/11 experience

What began as a routine New York train ride to a remedial English class put then 21-year-old Lerato Wana at the centre of the chaos that unfolded on September 11, 2001. Wana, now the Director of Student Life at North-West University’s Mahikeng campus and a mother, recalls a day she describes as being in the “wrong place, at the right time” because of the class she was attending. She reflects on what she experienced that day, the healing that followed, and how her experience now shapes the way she supports international students at the university.