Category: Getting around

I shouldn’t have done the math.  I have spent 66 hours in public transportation since June 7th.  It has been a long 66 hours.  But, the end is in sight.  July 4th will be forever known to me also as Independence from Public Transportation Day, since that’s when my vehicle arrived at the port.  Sadly, the paperwork didn’t get there until July 11th, causing all sorts of difficulties. Because of this, I’m not going to get my hands on the car for another month, and all the money saved importing it is down the drain in fees and storage costs.  Phooey.

But, public transportation has been interesting.  This morning, I had an hour before my bus left, so I decided to do a little cultural observation.  Not a bad thing, huh?  So, here’s what I observed:
There were women selling things from trays or boxes that they carried on top of their heads.  Two of them had morning toiletry things-Q-tips, toothpaste, some kind of pill, and toothbrushes.  The toothbrush is not what you would think, but rather the little sticks of wood in the picture.  I’ll take a better picture tomorrow…

The other 3 ladies had food-one with bread, one with pastries, and one with hard boiled eggs.  I was hungry, but none of this was going to definitely be safe for me to eat, so I didn’t get any.  Just as we were boarding the bus, I heard someone yelling "bananas," but I couldn’t get to them before we pulled out.  Bananas are perfect-wrapped up and perfectly hygienic just the way they grow!  I found some later on in the trip, so I didn’t starve.  Looks like I have a few more bus trips to experience before I get my truck.  Stay tuned…

Today I felt like I’m learning how to live here, a little, at least.  My visitor and I traveled back across three (skinny) countries so that I could get her to the airport.  There were tons of border crossings.  At the last one, there was a very insistent guy who wanted to "help" us with all the formalities.  First he wanted $10 to give to the border police for our luggage.  I smiled, said no, walked over, shook the policemen’s hands, and they let me through-there is no luggage fee.  Our helper tried the same thing with the customs lady-$4 this time.  I didn’t get mad, just laughed and said "good try" to our helper.  He laughed too, and walked away happy with his tiny tip.

That’s a good ending to an interaction-nobody mad, everyone laughing, a story to tell.  All in all, a good day.

The other day I went to town using public transportation  Every ten days or so I go there to check email, hang out with friends, and get recharged before plunging back into village life.  With all those trips, it’s a wonder that I just now experienced my first flat tire.

So, I’m sitting next to the road, on the other side of the mountain from where I live (hint:this is a relevant detail), waiting with the other passengers.  The guy driving has rolled the spare tire to the nearest village to fill it with air.   It’s not too bad.  I’m in the shade, there are some cute lambs walking around behind me, nothing is crawling on me.  Then, after an hour of waiting, it occurs to me:

I have a cell phone. 

In my defense, the phone doesn’t work where I live because the mountain blocks the cell phone signal.  So, I’m not in the habit of using it when I’m not down in the big city (buying poisoned peanut butter).  But wait, it gets better.  Since the phone doesn’t work up here, I don’t have anyone’s phone numbers in it.  Another ten minutes pass before I realize that in addition to my phone I have my laptop.  With my phone list on it. 

The picture below is me, entering everyone’s phone numbers while I wait for a friend to pick me up.  Somehow this branch got in the way of my face.  My poodle perm was looking particularly splendid at this point, too bad you don’t get to see it.
                        

I’m off to ride through three countries on a bus with my friend.  It’s supposed to be quick and air conditioned, and easy to get across the border…we’ll see!  I’m going back to the land of no internet, we’ll see if I can post from my cell phone when I go into town.  No cell towers where I live yet, out in the country!