Today started like any other day. I woke up at 6:45 am to the sound of my alarm. I took my shower with the always changing water temperature. I got dressed, put on my makeup and made my bed. I had the usual breakfast of corn flakes with powdered milk. I said good bye to my host mom and walked the 5 minute walk to school. During my walk, I saw the normal every day things: kids walking to school in their uniforms, dogs roaming the street, indigenous women balancing their items on their head. I got the normal machismo treatment from men on the street. Regular stuff. My teacher and I finished our lesson by 12, and we decided to watch a movie for the remaining hour. Everyone else was playing scrabble in espanol, card games or conversing in Spanish with their teacher. My Spanish teacher and I had chosen to watch Buena Vista Social Club. It was that or Frida; of which I have seen 4 times already. The movie was not rewound, so we waited for the movie to rewind before we could watch it. All of a sudden we hear POW POW POW POW POW. I look at my teacher... I am thinking these were not firecrackers that I just heard. We open the window and see a silver car outside our window with the windows broken. The car alarm is sounding. The car is no longer moving and I do not see anyone moving inside. We run out of the room and into the main section of the school. Everyone is looking at each other. My first thought is to run outside, but then I am thinking ahhh.. muy peligroso. We all stay inside and the headmaster of the school goes outside to assess the situation. We could all see the crime scene from the windows of our school. I later find out that the man was a lawyer and he was driving to his office on the next block. We believe that this was a planned attack. Two of my teachers were cousins of his; and they were obviously very upset. We were all shaken up and I am still feeling pretty scared and shaken. I came home to my host family and explained what had happened to them (in Spanish no less!) and they were shocked that this had happened. My teachers and host family tell us that does not happen very often at all. It is more common in the Municipal, but not in Xela. I keep rethinking the whole scene in my head. We could see two of the gold bullet shells on the ground... Watching the family members arrive was really upsetting as well. I prayed for him and his family... I just came back to my school and they have the street blocked off. His body was already removed from the car and covered partially with a cloth. Life is short.