By Sue Lavene
In the beginning of my recent trip to Guatemala, I was amazed to see so many yellow school buses around Antigua. This instantly brought me right back to my childhood days as I wondered whether there was that many schoolchildren in and around Antigua needing to be transported somewhere. When I looked more closely inside the bus, though, I realized that there were mostly adults in them. What I soon found out was that these buses are used there for inter-city transportation and do not serve the purpose – as I was accustomed – to take school children to and from school.
Called "buses" or "camionetas" by Guatemalans and "chicken buses" by others, these brightly painted, recycled school buses were adorned with religious embellishments hanging around the front of the bus near the driver with lively music playing in the not-so-distant background. The drivers have an assistant who you will find either periodically collecting money from passengers or hanging out the open door, ready to jump out at any moment to "recruit" more bus business. The buses stop every now and then on the side of the road of little villages to pick up and drop off passengers – at that point, I still couldn't figure out how you informed the driver that you wanted to get off.
On one particular day, it was after several stops that the bus began filling up to the point of absolute – and inconceivable (in my mind) – fullness. Imagine squeezing 3 adults into one school bus seat. This was the norm on those buses – because they were so inexpensive for passengers – with many others standing in the aisles due to lack of seating or better yet, in the empty space of the small aisle, those desperate to take the load off, "sat" in the air wedged shoulder-to-shoulder between the person in the seats immediately to their right as well as to their left. They must have exchanged the normal sized school bus seats for longer ones because the aisles were even smaller than I remember from my childhood school days, however, my larger body may account for the difference in perspective. While it filled up more and more with each subsequent stop, I was laughing and thinking to myself, "now, how the heck am I supposed to get off?!?"
If you've ever been in this situation, you would know that it's hard enough for an average sized person to pass through to the front of the bus, let alone a "pleasingly plump" somebody, like me. The time came to descend so I had no choice but to make my mortified way to the front of the bus – praying to myself that I wouldn't, my worst nightmare yet, get STUCK between people unable to move – gently passing everyone, desperately sucking in my gut and – albeit ineffectively – attempting to elongate my body as if to make my pass more do-able, all the while saying in Spanish, "excuse me", "pardon me" and "I'm sorry" with a sheepish grin. I literally had no choice but to push past every person in the aisle seats as I squeeeeezed past.
On another ride, this time thinking myself wise to the calamity of my previous trip and satisfied with myself for coming up with a better solution for my future comfort, I decided that I would stay at the front of the bus to avoid any further incident. I didn't want to sit in any of the seats, I figured, because it would be just as difficult for me to squeeze out of the seat, past several people just to get into the aisle, so I remained standing.
This time as the bus filled up, I thought, "no problem". I was safely at the front where I could easily get off, how bad could it get?Wouldn't you know it – a couple of people all at once came pushing past me, plowing through to the back causing me to have to step out of the aisle and up onto the soft seat next to me which was filled with big straw bags of textiles. In other words, in case you didn't get it the first time around, I was forced to climb up onto the top of the seat to get out of their way. I have never before been in such a humiliating place as a woman of size.
Just so you know it wasn't just me to whom these uncomfortable situations occurred, a classmate of mine on one particular ride, tall and thin like Popeye's Olive Oyl, sitting in the seat in front of me, was squooshed between two full-grown adults, with her left cheek suspended off the seat, her body twisted around to the right.
Nevertheless, despite my "adventures" experienced on those buses, warmly thinking back on them never fails to make me smile!
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