Security nightmare 3

I had a Portuguese lesson this morning at 9 o’clock, but for various boring reasons I was early. Such are the inconveniences of sharing a car and driver. I had arrived thirty five minutes early and was reading a “Hello” magazine (well maybe looking at the pictures as it was in Portuguese), when she came in, about half an hour early. She is usually about 5 minutes early, but never half an hour.

My initial reaction that she had the time wrong – strange because I always have the lesson at 9.am on Tuesdays, but it turns out that she had to take the bus – hence her early arrival.

I wondered why she took the bus – and then the story emerged.

It turns out that last Friday, during the day, her husband was using her car and was driving along a main road, in front of the local shopping centre about 2 miles from my house. (I regularly go to this shopping centre as it is the closest place for Starbucks Coffee.) He had stopped for the traffic lights when someone tapped on his window asking for “help”.

The next minute, someone had appeared at the passenger window with a gun and with that, they, hopped in the car and instructed the husband to go into the shopping centre. Armed with his credit cards and pin numbers, one of the robbers then proceeded to spend several thousand Reais (R$) whilst my teacher’s husband was held “hostage” in the car.

They then drove to another shopping centre and an ATM machine and basically the robbers spent everything they could up to the limit of all the cards. This is called a “lightening kidnapping” here in Brazil.

The bad news is that my Portuguese teacher and her husband are now several thousand R$ out of pocket and the car was stolen so they now don’t have any transport – hence the bus ride to my lesson. In addition, the insurance companies, it seems, are very wary of claims purporting to be from people who have had their cars stolen in this manner and want to wait at least 30 days to see if it actually turns up, before paying out.

The good news is that my teacher’s husband was shaken but unharmed in the process. They could so easily have just pulled the trigger and she would now be a widow. A friend of ours has a secretary whose close family member was not so lucky. Two gunmen jumped into his car and shot him. The gunmen then rode around with an injured passenger, and instead of letting him go and get treatment, they let him bleed to death.

My teacher was quite understandably upset by the whole event. Which made me think how lucky I am to have not only a bullet proof car but also an armed bodyguard.

This week there have been several visitors to my husband’s office from the United States. For several weeks now, Marcelo has been training a number of other drivers, not only as a relief for him but also for weeks such as this when multiple drivers and cars are needed. The security and logistics making sure that these people have the protection that they need, whilst being at the right place at the right time has, I’m sure, caused a few headaches.

For me, the inconvenience of arriving half an hour early for my Portuguese lesson is absolutely a price worth paying. Remind me not to grumble next time.