happiness on a bus

Just about every single morning I’m up at 5 or 5:30. Some mornings it’s because of the cows (vacas), roosters (gallos), buses (buses), or venders (vendedores); other mornings it’s because I’m going to “hacer ejercicio” (to make exercise) with my fellow Molineros trainees. Sometimes that means running straight up a hill for 30-40 minutes, depending when we want to turn around, or doing yoga on my patio, surrounded by curious dogs, chickens, ducks and host relatives. We always invite them to join in, but no luck! “Maybe later”, they say.
If we don’t have class here in Molineros, we travel to San Vicente. The bus schedules don’t seem to be organized in any way that I have figured out yet, but luckily our host parents know exactly which bus is passing at what time to get us where we need to go. The public transportation system is privatized here like it is in Argentina and India. Anyone can create a bus route, you just need to register with the Department of Transportation. So this means that you get bus routes like 178A that go from Verapaz to San Vicente, (which is the only bus that we can take that takes us directly to and from where we need to go). The 500 goes from Guadalupe to San Vicente, but only in the mornings, in the afternoons it turns around before our stop. Waaaaay before our stop. We only made that mistake once! The 501 however goes from Guadalupe to San Salvador, completely in the opposite direction that we need to go. The 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 and 306 all travel between San Miguel and San Salvador and come by about every 10 minutes. Other buses come only twice a day. Etc. etc. etc. all around the country.
I love public transportation (as long as I get a seat!). There is something about sharing a ride with other people, seeing the country and experiencing it all together that literally puts a smile on my face when I travel. Coming back from immersion days, I had a big goofy grin. It’s a good thing I was up near the front, because I’m sure if anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was even crazier than they already think the gringa traveler is. The bus that I was on had the front door more towards the middle of the bus so there are seats right up next to the driver, essentially sitting in the passenger seat of the bus. That’s where I was sitting. So I got an almost 180 degree view of El Salvador coming back from immersion days (more about immersion days later). Most of the buses here are old school buses. Someone said that a bunch of them are donated by school systems in the States. I’m not sure, but it seems like it. You can sometimes see the old lettering on the side that says “Montgomery County Public Schools” of “Ridgewood Elementary School”. All the buses are painted fabulous colors on the outside, with lots of decorations on the inside. There is normally music on the buses, and it’s normally loud and cheesy 80s pop. I’ve gotten off the bus to Lady in Red more than once.
The volunteer that I was visiting this weekend, Emily, said that if you are an impulse buyer, you might have trouble in El Salvador because the venders come on to the bus to sell you things. Anything. Everything. I’ve witnessed the sale of chiclet, newspapers, pre-made sandwiches, meat on a stick, coconut water in bags, little notebooks, anatomy textbooks, English workbooks, salvation and chips. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but I might get some roasted peanuts or toasted coconut the next time one of those venders gets on the bus.
The immersion days experience was a four day, three night immersion in the site of a current volunteer. We did a home stay in their community, in the hopes that we would be completely immersed in Spanish and Salvadoran culture for at least 24 hours without any of our fellow gringos to fall back on. It kind of worked, except that the volunteer I was visiting lived right across the street from my host family. My family was waving goodnight and chatting across the street, but it still worked! After the home stay, I got to follow around Emily and do what she does on a daily basis. I helped her give an environmental charla (chat) which is probably what I will be doing a lot of. On Saturday I got to go with her environmental club to one of their reward excursions. We went to the Barra de Santiago, a 2.5 hour ride in the back of a truck to a beach/bay/mangrove forest area. It was beautiful and so nice to see how a volunteer is making progress with her kids. After touring the mangrove area in a boat, we took the kids to the beach. Emily had told the kids that they could tell their parents they would be extra safe on this trip because they were traveling with a lifeguard (me!). First of all, my certification expired two years ago, I was trained for swimming pools, not surf, and generally most of the people I was guarding had some modest amount of swimming lessons. It was just me, 25 salvadoran children and the Pacific ocean. The waves here are pretty serious, and there is a fairly mean undercurrent, not to mention that the tide was going out anyway. Luckily, there were some other volunteers that joined us on the beach that day, with their trainees that were shadowing them, so we just made a gringo wall and had the children play in the waves between us and the beach. It worked out well enough, but we all probably got knocked over a couple of times.
I’m so excited to finally be getting ideas about what I can do in my site. I’m having a blast seeing this country and learning more about the people and the language. I love spending time with the other trainees and my host family. I’m enjoying training for the most part but can’t wait to get to my site, wherever it may be. I’m thrilled to be here, and can’t wait to share it with whoever wants to come down and visit me!