Chicken Buses

27 January 2010

The Camioneta (a.k.a. Chicken Bus)

So some of the people who were around while I was getting ready to leave may have heard mention that the main source of travel in Guatemala is by chicken bus, and I'd like to clarify what that means, now that I know. Let's be clear, there are no chickens on this bus (at least there haven't been yet for me). These buses are literally school buses from the United States that have been brought down to Guatemala and painted with new colors and designs. Occasionally the painter will have left the name on the side, so you can see what town the bus was originally from (the only one I can remember was from Newark, NJ). For those of you who haven't recently been in a public school bus, let me remind you what it's like. The ceilings are approximately 6 feet tall (which is 6 inches shorter than I am, for those of you who don't like math) and each seats is built to hold up to three elementary schoolers or two middle schoolers. I don't know if they've crammed in more seats, or if there was always this amount of space, but there is approximately 18 inches of space between the seats (which is about 4 inches shorter than my femur, for those of you who are counting). Also, there is approximately 8 inches of space in the aisle between the seats (which is about 3 inches wider than my calf). Then they've installed luggage racks above the seats on both sides (kind of like in an airplane except made entirely of metal and not close-able) All this information is nice, but not really relevant without this last piece: the driver and ayudante (the guy who takes all the fares on the bus and is absolutely insane, I'll have a section on him later) try to fit approximately 150 people into the bus for any major trip (meaning a trip longer than 10 minutes, which is pretty much all of them). This means that every single seat has 3 full grown adults (remember, of course, that "full grown adult" in Guatemala typically means approximately 5'1" ) smashed together, plus the aisle filled with people standing. Now that you have this lovely image in your head, try to insert me into it...

So yeah, I've gotten some aches and pains from these buses. Here are my options: sit down in a seat, get my knees bruised by the metal back of the seat in front of me; stand up, hit my head on either the ceiling or the two parallel bars for grabbing that run along the ceiling over the aisle. Now in reality there is a third option that I just discovered on Monday, but I think it's frowned upon...if there are only two people in each seat adjacent to where I am standing (because I'm usually standing) I can sit with half-a-cheek on each seat, and be comfortable with my knees between the seat in front of me. The problem is that I am then completely blocking the aisle AND taking up two people's sitting room AND taking up someone's standing room. So I can't do this often, but when I can, it's amazing!

Ok, now to the ayudante. So when you get on the bus, you don't pay anything, you just sit down. The ayudante then comes around to everyone who's new and takes their fare and gives them change. If he doesn't have change, he tells you that he'll bring you change once he collects fares from other parts of the bus where he will probably get change, and if you're lucky, he is nice and brings you your change without you having to ask. So this doesn't sound crazy, but then remember to insert into the bus 150 people smashed together (like chickens in a chicken truck...?) and imagine that this guy makes his way through all these people and collects money from all of them while the bus is moving (often somewhat crazily in terms of speed bumps and turns). Then, if the bus is REALLY full, he'll open up the back door and just hang off the ladder on the back of the bus. When the bus stops the next time he runs around and gets back in the front. Also, if someone has something big that they want to put on top of the bus for the trip, he climbs up there really fast and has them hand it up to him.

Now let me say that 150 people is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. I think it's probably a bit over 100. I'll count the seats soon and update this number. Also, there are definitely a lot of times where there aren't nearly that many people on the bus, but it really doesn't help my situation because sitting with just two people in a seat sucks for my legs, and standing still sucks for my head....

Earthquakes

January 20, 2010
We´ve had two minor earthquakes this week...

Another weird thing I forgot to mention is that no toilet paper goes into the toilet, you have to put it all in a trash can...all of it.

That´s enough for now.

First Guate Post

16 January, 2010

This is my first blog entry from Guatemala, and as such, I'm kind of expecting it to suck. To avoid that, I'm going to try to keep the chatter to a minimum and just talk about Guatemala-specific things.

I live in a house with a family. There is a couple who is expecting a baby in April, and the parents of the dad-to-be. Oh, and we have a 3 month-old beagle puppy. Our house is pretty sweet. The main entrance is a door that is part of the garage door, but opens separately. When you leave the garage, you are in the living room, which is bordered by open air because there's a courtyard in the middle of the house, and there are no close-able windows or doors between it and the living room. My room is on the other side of the courtyard. There are upstairs rooms on both sides of the courtyard. That's enough of that...

In Guatemala the water is not safe to drink or ingest without first being boiled. Also, there are many places that don't have running water all day. To address this issue, someone invented this thing called a "pila." For those of you who have never seen one, I'll try to post a picture soon. (LONG DESCRIPTION STARTING, FEEL FREE TO SKIP TO ***) It's basically like three sinks that are all connected together. The middle one is deeper and doesn't have a drain. The other two are shallow and each have a drain. The tap is over the middle one, so when there is water, the middle one is filled all the way up. This way there is at least some supply of water when the water is off. The right hand side of the pila is used for washing dishes, which means that's where all the dirty dishes are piled. The left hand side is for washing your hands. To get water you pick up this plastic dish, scoop up some water, and pour it over your hands. Then you scrub them with soap, then you rinse with the plastic thing. ***I don't know why I'm going into so much detail, I think I'm going to go back and put a big label so that impatient people know what to skip...

The people here are wonderfully nice, and despite the fact that I am clearly an intruder in their space, seem happy to say hello to me whenever I am around. Basically, I say "Buenos(as) ____ (dias, tardes, noches)" to everyone that I pass, and they almost all genuinely smile, and respond in kind. It's pretty awesome. Granted, I hear a lot of laughter after a few steps, but I think it's all good-hearted.

I have Spanish class almost every day with three other trainees who are at my level. One day a week we all go to the Peace Corps headquarters (where I get my mail) to get classes on health, safety, etc. Starting next week we're going to be having more and more classes about our program, which is called Escuelas Saludables (Health Schools). They have a lot to teach us...

I eat a lot of beans here. A ton. Black beans. They are absolutely delicious. Who knew...? Also hand-made corn tortillas, completely different than the ones you can buy in the states, much more delicious.

The other day I was laying in bed in my room in the afternoon after class and a car drove past our house with a megaphone blaring an advertisement. It was advertising English lessons, and all the words were in English. In the background it had little kids singing the alphabet song......wrong... They got the letters right, but they had the timing wrong, it was really weird. Let's see if I can communicate this. Normally the song breaks the alphabet down into these groups: ABCDEFG-HIJKLMNOP-QRS-TUV-WX-Y and Z. I came in in the middle, but they had it broken down to OPQ-RST-UVW-XYZ, which as it turns out, does work with the song. That was the most surreal moment of my experience so far.

The most pure was yesterday. I was in a town near mine with several other volunteers after we finished our class, and we met up at a little park. There were a couple little girls playing together, and one of them asked one of the other volunteers to play with them. She went to play, but they needed more people, so I volunteered. We played duck-duck-goose, or as it is called here, pato-pato-ganso. After a couple rounds the other volunteers got bored, but I played with these girls for another 15 minutes or so. It was wonderful to experience that kind of acceptance that you get from really young kids (I think they were probably 5 or 6) when you let yourself really play with them.

Step One - Cut a Hole in the Box

Hello,

Today I am leaving for the Peace Corps. Well, towards the Peace Corps is a more precise statement. I'm not leaving the country until Wednesday, but tomorrow is Orientation, and today I'm flying to Washington DC.

I am currently sitting in the SeaTac airport, 38% of the way through my three hour layover. That's about all for now...