A New Perspective

Just when I thought I couldn't change my mind about something that has bothered me for the last year and a half while living in Guatemala, I surprise myself and can see a positive reason for using public transportation. I have found myself, almost daily, building up frustration internally, well and occasionally externally, over how unreliable and terrible public transportation is in this developing country. As a Peace Corps volunteer, it is part of the cultural experience to live as the host country nationals live and use the services, including public transport, that people in your community use.

All over the country of Guatemala, you will find refurbished school buses that have been imported from the United States and are affectionately called "camionetas", or chicken buses. They are repainted and "tricked out" once the arrive here. In fact, a guy from the US did a documentary on the whole process of bringing the buses to Guatemala. Check it out here: http://lacamionetafilm.wordpress.com/. ( Mom, you should see about getting a copy of this :))

So in the region where I live in Guatemala, you won't find very many camionetas, but instead what they call micro-buses. When I got to my site, we had two of the micros and they left every 30 minutes or so to go to Coban. Now we occasionally have one and it leaves every hour or so. Generally speaking, buses are always filled to the brim and won't leave for your next destination until they are overflowing with people. This means people standing, people sitting three people to a normal two person school bus seat, people hanging out of the door, kids standing between the seat in front of them and their mother's lap, etc.

Anyway just to mention a few of the frustrations I've had with using this public transport.... I've waited up to two hours for a bus to my community that is only 15 minutes from Coban (you're probably thinking why didn't you just walk...well because carrying all your laundry, groceries, etc for an hour walk isn't too fun...especially in the rain or blistering sun...); I've had my laundry put on top of the bus and then the rain started and soaked all of my recently washed clothes; I've smelled someone's body odor on the bus and had a craving for mexican food (that is kinda sick, I know...but that is the kind of crazy stuff that happens on the public transport when you haven't had mexican food in a year...); frequently I find myself on a bus in the rain and everyone has the windows closed, causing the bus to fill with warm body heat, which then leads to windows fogged up and me drenched in sweat; I've found myself on buses where the drivers are enjoying a beer while carrying the forty people on the bus home...but it isn't the bus driver's first beer of the afternoon and we are swerving all over the road (fear for life...a constant on public transport); you may be thinking, "but it is public transport and you are creating less carbon emissions" or something else about how it is helping the environment....not the case! they are old buses that have terrible exhaust....i constantly find myself coughing or having the infamous "black boogers" we PC volunteers have; well, there are many more negatives to public transport here, but I'll let you come to visit to experience all of them.

So this past week I found myself returning from a workshop on the other side of the country at my friend, Tara's site about improved stove construction ( my site is working on doing this project here). We were delayed a day in our travels because of roadblocks by teachers and health workers nationwide ( these are also a frequent happening in Guatemala because the government frequently doesn't give promised resources). So we left at 4:30 in the morning from Quetzaltenango Friday to try to avoid getting stuck another day because of the strikes. So we made it nearly back to our region, but then at about noon we found the micro we were on taking a detour to avoid a roadblock. I was excited because this usually isn't even an option. People wait in lines on either side of the roadblock for hours and hours. It was a long off road detour, but we made it to the other side with only a few setbacks.

So I was calculating when exactly we would get home and got really excited that we would be there in a couple of hours. I was traveling with a guy from my community and we had only eaten a package of crackers since dinner the night before. We weren't working on much fuel or patience. We actually were pretty grouchy and were only exchanging a few words between ourselves. So an hour later when we found ourselves approaching another roadblock, we felt completely defeated. However, we also found the only major POSITIVE I have experienced to date with public transport in Guatemala: we waited approximately 30 minutes in the bus, then got our luggage and walked across with the rest of the public transport users to the other side of the roadblock to find another micro waiting on us to continue on with our journey. This time, those private car owners got to watch us leave them behind (as they couldn't just abandon their cars) and travel home without having to wait in the long traffic line. It was amazing...

So the whole trip home took over 11 hours, but I got to find that positive in public transportation, which ALMOST made it all worthwhile.

I'll be updating the blog with more details about what's been going on in my life soon. My ipad is currently about to die and I have to go to Coban to charge it in a bit. We haven't had electricity in the community since Friday. A tree fell on a power line. Apparently community members cut the tree up and moved it from its original location, so the power company is saying they don't believe them and that we have to pay for the repairs... about $500. Who knows how long that dispute will last and we won't have electricity...I'm hoping not long!

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