Chicken Bus at the Border
I went on this epic journey this winter, one I had been planning for many years. I quit my job for the first time in years (something I used to do all the time) and threw caution to the wind that I'd find another before my money ran out. Right now, two months after returning home, with only two job interviews under my belt and no job to show for it, with bills from my ACA insurance which, if paid in full, will delete an alarming percentage of my savings . . . I'm staving off deep regret. But this kind of regret is probably as fleeting as many of the other emotions i've tangled with at the end of this particularly cold winter. The ice is almost melted on the edge of Lake Michigan by Jarvis beach. If i squint my eyes I can almost pretend it looks as much like the coast off Tilapita in Gautemala as the icy but beautiful arctic it resembled a month ago. So maybe it's time to take a deep breath and remember why I took this calculated risk.
I lost almost all my ability to write or draw when I was in Latin America. It wasn't for lack of feeling stimulated or inspired. It definitely wasn't because there weren't a million stories unfolding around me every day and an editorial essay to go with each one. I think it was because i was so focused on learning Spanish, my brain just couldn't switch back like that. I wish that i could return to a moment of each day, now that my full English language capacity is intact, and write from that day. But I'm going to try and piece together some stories from memory in this here journal over the next couple weeks.
I'm flashing to a night in Xela; it was my second time there and I would only stay for about 16 hours this time. I had left a lake town on the other side of the Mexican Border at six am, walked 2 kilometers, taken a collective van to the fork in the carretera, taken another to Ciudad Cuauthemoc, argued with the taxi driver outside the Mexican immigration about fare, taken 2 miles to the Guatemalen Immigration in la Mesilla, argued with the currency exchange guys there, hopped another slightly less overpriced collective taxi to the bus terminal, and waited with an older woman who had traveled over 16 hours from a wedding in Mexico back to her tiny town. We rode together, packed in with dozens of others on the colorful school bus where I nearly cried when I heard Marimba playing for the first time in three weeks. Four hours later we arrived in the bustling mess of the Hue Hue bus terminal and changed together to the bus to Xela. It was two hours direct for me but she was to get dropped of at another carretera which made her a bit nervous. One Ayudante threw her stuff off the top of the bus while another walked her across the traffic circle. I waved to her enthusiastically, feeling lucky for our periodic exchanges of stories about life, and grateful that the men on these buses were dedicated to the safe passage of this old woman who had never traveled so far in her life. Thirty minutes later I got off at another busy market, this time in Xela, where i got a collective minivan which didn't go all the way to the center of the town, but transferred me to one which would.
On this particular day, all of this cost me about $15, in spite of the special gringo prices by the taxi drivers. There were signs on some of the buses, but mostly you just stood somewhere busy until someone came at you yelling names of towns and you corrected them until they pointed you to the right corner and hoped that the eager person that ushered you onto whichever bus or pick up or van or tuk tuk didn't steer you wrong. Weirdly, they never did, except for the time a taxi driver told me there was no collective going to the town I wanted to get to and I called his words a lie and found the pickup with the huge sign for that very town a half a block down the street. Every time I got out of one vehicle, my red back pack miraculously appeared from atop whatever vehicle it had been unceremoniously slung on top of, and often within minutes some other aydante had swept that red bag up some later and tied it next to a bundle of fire wood.
Back in Xela, I finally had everything strapped on the front and back of my body and could look for a bed for the night, which happened at my first stop on this particular occasion. It was a really gorgeous hotel with huge rooms facing a semi-open living room/ plaza. I miss the open spaces in Xela, Chiapas, and DF, even when it was 40 degrees at night and the old women piled in sweaters and fuzzy hats chanted "Frio" over and over and over again. I miss the room windows which open out to lobbies in a strange not-so-private way evocative of all my years living on communes. When I got to Xela this time I was ravenous, because I hadn't eaten a full meal in almost three weeks due to stomach bugs. So I went to the famously popular Indian restaurant that i'd yet to try and managed 3/4 of a meal of what was surprising delicious food, a record, and a good harbinger of my gastrointestinal recovery. I watched the other guests head out for a night of partying and took advantage of precious internet time which i knew I would lack for the next 3 weeks. I watched a movie in the semi open lobby, wrapped in blankets, but not thinking "frio", because i'm from Chicago and any weather i encountered was a relief to me. I went to bed early so I could wake up early, go back to the market, and catch the early Xelaju bus to the school. It was the busiest messiest bus i'd taken yet, and I wanted to be ready for it. I did not yet realize it, but this would be the last time i spent in Xela.
I don't know why this particular moment hangs in my memory - It's not so epic, that night in that hotel. But I think a long day of buses made me feel alive, and being back in Guatemala felt really good after a few difficult and sick weeks in DF. That moment of rest after a long day of buses, especially a border day, was such a reward. Guatemalan buses were my favorite, and I miss them every time I step on a relatively clean and not so crowded L train with not a live chicken or mesh bag full of ten pounds of Cabbage to be found. Maybe i would hate them as much as the teachers at the school if i had to live with them my whole life, if the 10 Quetzal fare was fifth of a days wages. They reminded me of hitch hiking, of a kind of micro economy which was almost socialist, almost, if you ignored the corruption and the risk of drivers getting murdered by gangs trying to skim a cut. Almost, if you ignored the fact that accessible transportation existed for people a bit more poor than me only because those poor people were rich, and there were so many poorer than them who needed to take the bus, even if it was a third of their day's wage. I also loved the days crossing the borders, not because it made me hate any less what those borders stood for, nor because my significant privilege with crossing them was something I felt good about. It is strange, there is so much about the big picture I hated, but getting to be there and see how those borders happened was such a gift, such a privilege of clarity. That combined with 16 different transfers in barely marked vehicles at best kept me from feeling low and sleepy, staved off that dull depression of complacency combined with that feeling that there's nothing I can do about all this shit.
There was more, there were more exciting moments when I saw things and met folks that sometimes inspired me with their brilliance and resilience and other times reminded me of the pipeline between my life and the disasters that have been created in so many other people's communities. I want to talk about all of this, and hopefully I will. For now I'll go to bed and imagine curling up under a thick woven wool blanket with the sounds of Marimba wafting through the open roof of the plaza like living room. For now I will pretend that rather than jumping on an 8 am red line train to go to a job interview tomorrow I'll be catching a brightly painted bus at 6 am for a couple Quetzales.
I lost almost all my ability to write or draw when I was in Latin America. It wasn't for lack of feeling stimulated or inspired. It definitely wasn't because there weren't a million stories unfolding around me every day and an editorial essay to go with each one. I think it was because i was so focused on learning Spanish, my brain just couldn't switch back like that. I wish that i could return to a moment of each day, now that my full English language capacity is intact, and write from that day. But I'm going to try and piece together some stories from memory in this here journal over the next couple weeks.
I'm flashing to a night in Xela; it was my second time there and I would only stay for about 16 hours this time. I had left a lake town on the other side of the Mexican Border at six am, walked 2 kilometers, taken a collective van to the fork in the carretera, taken another to Ciudad Cuauthemoc, argued with the taxi driver outside the Mexican immigration about fare, taken 2 miles to the Guatemalen Immigration in la Mesilla, argued with the currency exchange guys there, hopped another slightly less overpriced collective taxi to the bus terminal, and waited with an older woman who had traveled over 16 hours from a wedding in Mexico back to her tiny town. We rode together, packed in with dozens of others on the colorful school bus where I nearly cried when I heard Marimba playing for the first time in three weeks. Four hours later we arrived in the bustling mess of the Hue Hue bus terminal and changed together to the bus to Xela. It was two hours direct for me but she was to get dropped of at another carretera which made her a bit nervous. One Ayudante threw her stuff off the top of the bus while another walked her across the traffic circle. I waved to her enthusiastically, feeling lucky for our periodic exchanges of stories about life, and grateful that the men on these buses were dedicated to the safe passage of this old woman who had never traveled so far in her life. Thirty minutes later I got off at another busy market, this time in Xela, where i got a collective minivan which didn't go all the way to the center of the town, but transferred me to one which would.
On this particular day, all of this cost me about $15, in spite of the special gringo prices by the taxi drivers. There were signs on some of the buses, but mostly you just stood somewhere busy until someone came at you yelling names of towns and you corrected them until they pointed you to the right corner and hoped that the eager person that ushered you onto whichever bus or pick up or van or tuk tuk didn't steer you wrong. Weirdly, they never did, except for the time a taxi driver told me there was no collective going to the town I wanted to get to and I called his words a lie and found the pickup with the huge sign for that very town a half a block down the street. Every time I got out of one vehicle, my red back pack miraculously appeared from atop whatever vehicle it had been unceremoniously slung on top of, and often within minutes some other aydante had swept that red bag up some later and tied it next to a bundle of fire wood.
Back in Xela, I finally had everything strapped on the front and back of my body and could look for a bed for the night, which happened at my first stop on this particular occasion. It was a really gorgeous hotel with huge rooms facing a semi-open living room/ plaza. I miss the open spaces in Xela, Chiapas, and DF, even when it was 40 degrees at night and the old women piled in sweaters and fuzzy hats chanted "Frio" over and over and over again. I miss the room windows which open out to lobbies in a strange not-so-private way evocative of all my years living on communes. When I got to Xela this time I was ravenous, because I hadn't eaten a full meal in almost three weeks due to stomach bugs. So I went to the famously popular Indian restaurant that i'd yet to try and managed 3/4 of a meal of what was surprising delicious food, a record, and a good harbinger of my gastrointestinal recovery. I watched the other guests head out for a night of partying and took advantage of precious internet time which i knew I would lack for the next 3 weeks. I watched a movie in the semi open lobby, wrapped in blankets, but not thinking "frio", because i'm from Chicago and any weather i encountered was a relief to me. I went to bed early so I could wake up early, go back to the market, and catch the early Xelaju bus to the school. It was the busiest messiest bus i'd taken yet, and I wanted to be ready for it. I did not yet realize it, but this would be the last time i spent in Xela.
I don't know why this particular moment hangs in my memory - It's not so epic, that night in that hotel. But I think a long day of buses made me feel alive, and being back in Guatemala felt really good after a few difficult and sick weeks in DF. That moment of rest after a long day of buses, especially a border day, was such a reward. Guatemalan buses were my favorite, and I miss them every time I step on a relatively clean and not so crowded L train with not a live chicken or mesh bag full of ten pounds of Cabbage to be found. Maybe i would hate them as much as the teachers at the school if i had to live with them my whole life, if the 10 Quetzal fare was fifth of a days wages. They reminded me of hitch hiking, of a kind of micro economy which was almost socialist, almost, if you ignored the corruption and the risk of drivers getting murdered by gangs trying to skim a cut. Almost, if you ignored the fact that accessible transportation existed for people a bit more poor than me only because those poor people were rich, and there were so many poorer than them who needed to take the bus, even if it was a third of their day's wage. I also loved the days crossing the borders, not because it made me hate any less what those borders stood for, nor because my significant privilege with crossing them was something I felt good about. It is strange, there is so much about the big picture I hated, but getting to be there and see how those borders happened was such a gift, such a privilege of clarity. That combined with 16 different transfers in barely marked vehicles at best kept me from feeling low and sleepy, staved off that dull depression of complacency combined with that feeling that there's nothing I can do about all this shit.
There was more, there were more exciting moments when I saw things and met folks that sometimes inspired me with their brilliance and resilience and other times reminded me of the pipeline between my life and the disasters that have been created in so many other people's communities. I want to talk about all of this, and hopefully I will. For now I'll go to bed and imagine curling up under a thick woven wool blanket with the sounds of Marimba wafting through the open roof of the plaza like living room. For now I will pretend that rather than jumping on an 8 am red line train to go to a job interview tomorrow I'll be catching a brightly painted bus at 6 am for a couple Quetzales.