Title of the day is the great fear, because last night another of those events that are difficult to forget in life happened to me.
Deep maranhão, road between são luis and parnaiba, black night, no villages, bus carrying about twenty adults and some children, only one driver without assistance. Suddenly a sharp turn, a group of men pretending to perform road maintenance work, turn aside the bus down to a dirty road, full of potholes and soon the driver is forced to stop.
The silence, no one understands anything, then a man with a mask forces the driver to pick him up. In his hand holds a gun and orders everyone to get off the bus: I have the lucidity to hide in the fastest and smartest place I find the money and my documents, but the backpack cannot be hidden!
Once off the band with balaclava divides us, men on one side, women and children on the other. After a brief inspection, the group of women with children is back on the bus, they focus on us.
Begins an interrogation, one by one, inspection included, I answer in the best Brazilian of my life and they do not realize that I am a foreigner, a salvation considered the situation.
Meanwhile, two of the robbers are back to the bus, and in the confusion begin to rummage everywhere threatening women and children.
Outside the bus, the situation deteriorates dramatically, a man insults one of the robbers, we hear a gunfire, screams and curses, a nervous exchange of words between the criminals, who order everyone to bow their heads and finally fade away into the forest. The silence returns, many are crying.
Immediately we check the conditions of the wounded, and then go back on the bus, we have to reach as soon as possible the first emergency room and police. Twenty minutes after we arrive in Chapadinha, where he began a long night in the hospital, reporting the event to the police and support our fellow travelers. I also find the time to check what the criminals have taken: in my case absolutely nothing except 2 Bolivians, the equivalent of a few cents. For other people it went worse, we help a lady who was stolen the equivalent of a pension.