Michael: A Small Adventure

A mamaseta,
Coffee and bright morning sun
Works to start the day.

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

A bus ride of any length here is bound to provide an opportunity for a small adventure if you keep your eyes open. Yesterday, for instance, on my 4 hour round trip journey to pay our storage unit fee a few moments pop out.

First off a man that sat in front of me handed me a small pamphlet called El Cuarto. It was all in Spanish but when I looked on the back of it, it says it’s published by the Mennonites in the U.S. I couldn’t tell a Mennonite from a Shiite in a theist line up but I decided to hold onto it as a measure of my Spanish abilities. Right now it doesn’t make sense because I can’t read much of it. When I reach the level where I can read it but it still doesn’t make sense, I’ll feel I’ll have made real progress.

Just a bit further down the road the bus pulled over not to pick up or drop off a passenger, but so that the bus assistant could pick some over hanging fruit. He didn’t even have to step off the bus.

Coming back to Volcan after leaving David a man asked the assistant if he could address the bus. I believe he was making a plea for his sick daughter. Some people gave him change.

At the Bugaba stop, where the bus turns off the Pan American Highway and turns up the scenic windy road toward Volcan, there are usually two familiar vendors. One sells pork rinds, fried bananas and drinks served in baggies. The other serves ice cream. The pork rind seller walks around the bus and does his transactions through the windows while the ice cream dude usually boards the bus.

Between the road from Bugaba to Volcan many elementary students board the bus to make a short trip to their homes on the fincas (farms). It still amazes me when a 5 year old girl exit’s the bus to walk down a long farm road by herself. I’m not sure that wouldn’t be seen as some form of negligence in the states.

Further up the road and almost into Volcan the bus stopped at some house and the driver got off and gave an old woman $10 for something in a small plastic bag. Have no idea what it was, but you never know what private transaction you might get to sit through on a bus ride here.

A lot of people somehow manage to sleep through all of this free entertainment, but it’s still new and amusing to me.