In August 1990, Bosco was caught on the street by a group of criminals. They punched and threw him in the trunk of a car, stripped naked, carried in a blanket “like a little taco”. They put him on black painted goggles so that he couldn’t recognize them. Once these criminals took Bosco to the place where he would spend nine months kidnapped, which is the city of Puebla, one hour and thirty minutes away from Mexico City, they removed the goggles, and Bosco saw his raptors for first time. They were wearing white sheets covering their heads. His captors told him via written instructions, that he must answer truthfully such things as where his wife went to the hairdresser, what school his children attended, what route they took and so on. If he lied, they threatened to kill him and kidnap one of his brothers. This was the way his raptors would communicate with him, so that Bosco would not know how their voices sound like. So, he decided to answer only those questions his captors could verify if they put his family under surveillance, but he still felt as if he had betrayed them. “I felt like a piece of nothing.” He was imprisoned in a cell of three meters long and one meter wide, without windows sothat he would lose the sense of time. The criminals were playing a thirty minutes cassette over and over again during the whole day. For a couple of weeks, he sat in the corner by a makeshift toilet in a fetal position, hoping to die.
His captors realized that if they didn’t do something he was going to die, so they wrote him a message on Mexico’s Independence Day and told him he could have a drink. He asked for a high ball-sized glass of whiskey. When it arrived, he felt it “was the best thing I ever had.” It began what he called a “cult of the whiskey,” where he smelled it, ran the glass along his unshaven dirty face. But then he heard an internal prompt: “Bosco, give up the whiskey. Show me you are strong.” That internal voice persisted, “Give me something that is under your control.” So he threw the whiskey away without taking a sip. He wrote himself a note. “Today I won my first battle. I know at the end I can still be free, that I am not a piece of nothing.”
Bosco realized his family was trying to arrange for his release and praying for him. So, in order to survive to the kidnapping, he designed a regime of regular prayer and exercise and Bible study. He also realized he could not live with anxiety. In addition he was focused on living a daily routine. First: mental health; second: physical health; and third: action! He lived an impressive discipline not allowing the imagination turning him crazy. He designed a plan of physical health—one cassette for crunches and three cassettes for footing and mosquito hunting in order to keep sharp reflexes—, a plan of mental health—avoiding anguish and negative thoughts—and a spiritual plan.
The raptors contacted the family of Bosco and asked for a ransom. Bosco’s family was willing to pay the ransom; they wanted to do anything to save him. Everything was planned to pay the ransom and to free Bosco, but eventually the ransom fell through. Bosco had been for six months kidnapped in the cell, when it happened, so it was another hardship for Bosco who imagined himself free already. He had to face other three months kidnapped there, although he didn’t know exactly how time would he spend there. That situation was very hard, because he didn’t know if he would continue there for another month, one year, or even he would spend the rest of his life there. Psychologically, that is very hard to bear and to give up could seem the only choice, but Bosco didn’t give up,and after three months he decided to try out some makeshift tools—that he had done previously—while he could hear one guard taking a shower and the other sleeping. He ended up walking past them to freedom. His family decided not to pursue an investigation as a tacit agreement with his kidnappers that they leave them alone.
Bosco had to spend nine months alone in a three meter long and one meter wide cell; without sense of time, he could not know if it was night or morning, because in his cell there was not a single window. Besides, he was always listening to the same music, even at night, which makes very difficult to sleep. He had to bear the terror of knowing that he could die at any time, because his raptors had weapons. He was very concern for his family knowing that they were suffering greatly his lost, and also the fear of knowing that they could be attacked too. Even during the first months, he didn’t even have clothes to wear, which made him feel like an animal losing his dignity of man. This is how Bosco spent those nine months that lasted his kidnapping, and yet he survived, and he was able to go back home with his family and to continue having a happy life with his beloved ones, thanks to his perseverance to keep hope and keep himself healthy.
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