Bang Bang He Shot You Down...

Being in Brazil I presumed that sooner or later I would experience many movie-esque events, such as: a shooting, a car chase, a mugging with a gun pointing at my head, drug using.... Out of that list, I have now experienced a mini shooting and luckily I was no where near enough to be hurt. The others, well, I´m doing my best to stay out of trouble.


Quietly sitting enjoying our Subway sandwich (so perfect when you´re ever so slightly hungover), watching the world go by and we hear a series of bangs. This is not uncommon in Brazil, I hear shots being fired pretty much everyday but normally it´s kids playing with those annoying bangers or part of the Candomblé ceremony. This time however, the bangs were louder, there were more of them and there was a lot of shouting and screaming. Moment of confusion and terror when we see people running towards us to take shelter in Burger King, where we were sitting. Across the road from us is a huge white church, the first Apostolic Church in Salvador and there’s a lot of commotion going on there. Has someone been shot in the church or outside? Where are the police? What the hell is going on? We were intrigued, our hearts and adrenalin pumping at all this excitement so we ventured a little closer to figure out what was happening. (Yes, not the safest thing to do but human curiosity wins). The police arrived and there was more shooting. There’s a chase behind the buildings and then everything goes quiet. Bang.



The traffic continues as normal, the people return to their daily business and off we go on our weekend trip. I looked for news about what had happened and there was nothing. Apparently this was a tiny event and one of many in a day, too insignificant to be mentioned.





When I told this story to my Brazilians friends most of them replied with: "Bem-vindo ao Brasil Sarinha".


Your biggest fan,

Beijos