The bus

I love the bus. Er, I have come to love the bus. Previously it stressed me out. I’ve never minded the random and unpredictable schedule that often leaves me waiting for upwards of an hour, and I’ve enjoyed getting better at perfecting the “watching without looking like you’re watching” body language. What I struggled with a first was not being able to communicate where I was going and the consequent issues it created.

The bus is a fascinating microcosm. 30 people all crammed in a tiny space leads to a lot of interaction to observe. Women dressed in their matching scarves off to the market together, little kids being passed around laps of stranger after stranger, young men on their way to work, old men off to who knows where or why. What I find amazing is how much they work together. Everyone knows where everyone else is going and thus are constantly shifting each other around so people can get ready to get off (unless the bus is REALLY crowded, in which case you just push and shove each other a lot). There’s not a lot of talking going on, but the game of human tetris gives off such a…..fluidity, harmony. Really is a fascinating thing to see. And it’s intuitive for them, why wouldn’t they work together?

I’m finding myself less capable of conveying it than I thought I would be. I guess it’s sort of just one of those things you have to experience yourself.

When I first got here, I knew by sight the place I needed to get off by my house but couldn’t pronounce the name of it for the life of me. The money collector would ask me where I was going to know how much to charge me and it would immediately become an ordeal and I would almost immediately hit the same brick wall I’d hit in the past. Stressssss. Everyone on the bus would start talking amongst themselves and asking me in their own way where I was going and no one understood. Soon enough, the entire bus was worried about me. I felt so bad! I didn’t know how to convey that I knew where I was going and I was fine! Gosh I felt bad about that. I had one time where the lady next to me tried talking to me and I couldn’t understand her and she sort of just looked down and then looked away and I almost burst into tears (hey, after a long, hot, stressful day at work) with frustration at not being able to communicate and feeling out of rhythm with what going on around me. I had another time where, upon not being able to convey my destination, I started naming roads near it and the guy that got off when I did walked with me about twenty paces pointing all the nearby roads out and which direction they were and what things I could find on each road. Incredible, right? Certainly, these experiences have cropped up because I’m a stupid American, but nonetheless, they’ve shown me a little bit how they deal with stuff here and thus have given me gems of insight into how they think and work together and approach problems. All very interesting.

Now that I’ve gotten A LOT better hang of the bus, it’s a really enjoyable way to start my day. I plop my coins in the hand of the conductor while announcing my destination and move with everyone else to adjust and shift as the bus whirls and whips across the city. I feel a part of things, and I really, really, really like that.