For a lot of people, the media can seem like an ignorant method of culture osmosis. But after watching City of God combined with what happened to my cousin Ella this weekend, I am forever convinced otherwise.

To whoever is up there, thank you for keeping her safe and thank you for letting her make it through that terrible night. Here is a synopsis.

Wednesday afternoon Ella and I came back from Caruarù to Recife because we needed to get some stuff there, arrange new meetings, and pick up my boyfriendthat was visiting us (he’s in our same master program). We were going to spendthe night in our usual hotel in Boa Viagem (that has been our base all thistime) and then we were supposed to go to Toritama, where we had scheduledalready a bunch of interviews for thursday and friday. But this neverhappened, because in the night between wednesday and thursday the bad thinghappened. Around 1-1:30am 3 people together with the receptionist came in ourroom with guns and asking us for everything we had. They first came in theroom where me and my boyfriend were, and then to Ella’s room. It was terrible:the door opened (they had another key) and we woke up under the threat of their! guns....I am still shaking. They told us to be quiet and we gave themeverything. They also spent more than half hour, I think, looking verycarefully in all our stuff, and they took a bunch of things (from the mostvaluable to the most weird you may think someone will take...). Then, theytied us up, hands and feet, with ropes and tape, and they told us that theywere going to do that in the rest of the hotel, so we needed to be quiet andwithout moving for some hours. Our room was the first one, then they went toElla—i still remember her screaming, i don’t think i will ever forget it. Theydid the same to her. And so to other 3 persons in the hotel. I was tied upfor 3 or 4 hours in total, i don’t know. A couple of times those guys cameback in our room, because i guess they were afraid that the police was coming. One of them also changed his shirt with my boyfriend’s t-shirt, maybe for notbeing recognized once escaped. We were so scared. I wa! s afraid that somethingcould go wrong for them and they could use their guns. I was worried for Ellaalone in her room. I was scared that we couldn’t make it through the night. Fortunately, I don’t know exactly how (i am still confused), the thieves left(they robbed an hotel guests’ car) and the police came. I just remember Ellacoming in my room and cutting with a knife our ropes. This was around 5am. After that we went to the police. They robbed us everything: Ella’s and mypassport, our computers, our digital cameras, all our money, traveller checks,my plane ticket, plus other random things.