I took my first ride on a chicken bus last weekend, well actually several chicken buses. The school organized a trip to Momostenango (a small pueblo outside of Xela). The whole thing was sort of ill planned (por supuesto es Guatemala!) and some unknown fellow met us at the school as our guide. The six of us (all ladies y gringas) followed along to the main bus terminal which is full of beautifully colored repurposed school buses. There were a couple of buses headed to Momos but we had to catch one that takes a specific path in order to drop us in the right place. This proved to be a quite difficult request and even when we got on the bus we had to wait in line with the other buses before we even got out of the bus terminal. While we waited, several people came aboard to peddle everything from pens to evangelism. An hour and a half from our start we were finally on our way!
Once en route the bus quickly became quite crowded. Initially I was sitting next to just Miriam (a new school friend) but since there were so many people it turned into a three to a seat situation. The first person to sit next to me was an indígina woman. She had an infant slung across her back and its head kept bobbing gently on my shoulder. I like babies well enough, and this whole situation, though cramped, worked out fine. Eventually she got off and I, trying to be accommodating, kept the seat “open”.
The next person to find the seat next to me was a young-ish fellow who seemed relatively harmless at first. The trouble began with a sharp elbow resting on my hip. It was sort of subtle and the seats are really meant for two people so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. As the ride progressed however, his hand began to slowly creep toward my leg. I had my backpack on my lap so at first it was a little difficult to realize what was going on but when I moved my leg and bag away he seemed a bit put off (or so I hoped). The battle for space continued with elbow jabs and partial leg touching with some discomfort to me, but not as much as what I was in store for. I will preface this with the fact that it was extremely hot on this bus. I, as others, was wearing a tank top. The man would occasionally lean over, as if to adjust, and try to kiss my bare shoulder. When I really started to get what was going on I gave him a terrible stare and he sort of stopped in the moment but would continue when I was looking forward. Miriam leaned over and said that it was perfectly fine to say no gracias! From there on out, I tried to avoid his advances and give him dirty looks. The tour guide was doing the same and he sort of stopped. Not too long after this he got off the bus, much to my relief. The whole situation was a very uncomfortable 20 minutes.
I guess now I know what to do in the future, but that is not a future I want to have. I am not saying I am not going to ride a chicken bus again, but it is just really uncomfortable. It would be different if this was an isolated incident of harassment (like in SF with the creepy guy who rubs up on people on MUNI) but it is all over Guatemala. There is no time that I can walk down the street without cat calls and leering stares. I can't, and don't walk by myself after dark here. Obviously, that is a good idea in general, but shit gets real very quickly here. I am really not digging the “machismo” here and I miss my freedom of movement and the comfort of being able to walk down a street without being yelled at or riding the bus without a creeper.
The rest of the Momos trip was quite enjoyable. We visited the house of a weaving artisan. He showed us how they make the traditional rugs and blankets sold all over here. They are beautifully colored (all natural dyes) and the process was quite interesting. I even had a go at the machine and spinning wool. It turned out that our guide was the son of the artisan man and had been coerced into showing us around. They served us a simple almuerzo (lunch) of tortillas, beans and picante. We ate in their dark, smoky, mud-brick kitchen with baby chickens running around our feet. The hospitality was warmly welcomed especially after the “excitement” of the bus.
We visited the town of Momos for an hour or so. It is a small pueblo and the market was closing up so we headed back to Xela on the bus. On the way home, I sat next to the window.
A rundown of the week just passed:
I started to feel really terrible on Sunday night, I began to have sharp stabbing pains in my stomach which made it quite difficult to sleep and the ever frequent trips to the bathroom didn't help. On Monday morning I went to school still feeling pretty terrible suspecting the commonly diagnosed problem of parasites. My teacher suggested that I go to the clinic at the school. The doctor listened to my symptoms and my stomach which determined that yes, yo tuve los parásitos.
He gave me a prescription which involved taking four pills that day all at once and the following day two in the morning and two in the evening. The next couple of days were equally terrible. I couldn't really eat anything and for those in the know, I tend to have a bad reaction to medicines. This was no different. I was barely able to go to class and while there, I was very dizzy and disorientated. I slept in the hours after school, or rather, tried to. I don't know what I ate that contained los parásitos, apparently this is “parasite season” because of the change in weather (we are coming into the rainy season now). Several people have been sick both at school and at home. I have decided my best defense for the future lies in a bottle of whisky. I plan to take a drink at the days end to “clean” things out. Sure this may be an old wives tale, but the whisky is called “old friend” (that is not a translation) and I never want parasites again so I am going with it. A night cap a day will keep the parasite away.
Other than the parasites fiasco, I have been following the Xelaju (pronounced shay-la-who) soccer team. They are in the championships with the municipal team Los Rojos. I watched Xelaju lose the first half of the championships on Thursday night at a Mexican style restaurant appropriately called La Taqueria (it was kind of pricey, who would have thought?). The two teams will play the second half on Saturday night here in Xela and I hope for a win because it is really interesting to watch everyone get excited and there are a lot of fireworks when they win (also if they lose people get angry, in a bad way).
Te amo mucho!
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