Have you ever had a moment you wished it were a bad dream and you prayed that you would wake up right away from it? I recently experienced that moment. Janise (my goddaughter) and I were returning from a gathering with a group of friends when it all happened. I had my hands on the metal door the house where we were staying, about to open the door when we saw a man in his twenties coming our way. He abruptly pointed a small firearm towards us and exclaimed, “Stop!” Janise and I both froze. My heart jumped out of my chest and stood suspended on air. I prayed that the man would do nothing to cause my heart to fall on the ground and brake into a thousand pieces.
I could not see the face of Janise, but I could sense her panic. Less than five minutes prior, she had been recounting to me and two other friends of her terrible ordeal two weeks before in the City of Praia, Santiago. She had been walking from school with a colleague when two men pointed a gun and demanded that they give them all of their possessions. Her colleague obeyed the order, but Janise refused to do as requested. The men would have hurt her badly if a Good Samaritan had not come to her rescue.
Janise was facing that nightmare over again. I could not believe our luck. We were right in front of the house. Our family members and neighbors were sleeping peacefully meters from us. “Should we scream? Should we walk away? Should we tell him off?” We just stood there with our hands visibly empty. It felt as if the time had stopped and so did our hearts. Then, he said mockingly, “I can see I’ve frightened the girl. It was just kidding.”
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