Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Love is a Bus Ride: Part 1

Let me just preface this by reminding you my faithful readers, that this week we celebrate that four-lettter word: love. we also, coincidentally, celebrate my birth on the same day. I don't want to hear any anti-love talk, not a single word on the bane of relationships nor a pip about
the colour red. If you don't have someone to love, then I am your default. There. Happy now? you've got a red-headed Valentine.

Alright then, let's get on with it shall we?

There is nothing like a bus ride to make me remember how ridiculously wonderful this place is. Riding the bus at home is not really something that engenders feelings of patriotism and national pride (although the sky train does). Ironic, that the refurbished American school buses that I ride around this country on are the very environment to make me feel that giddy sense of pure and innocent love similar to what you get when you find out your crush likes you back. You just can’t get enough of their face- or their wheels; their eyes- or their windows- and the view rushing past those windows… mmm!

On Friday Shannon, Wendy and I took off for Matagalpa (also an environment that thrills me- it’s the mountains). We didn’t get out of Managua til about 4:15ish, due to the pit stops at Pricemart to purchase supplies for Noel and his café, Artesanos, and On-the-Run to purchase supplies for Kiki, Wendy and Shannon, and their road-trip. Several jugs of juice, whip cream, hot dogs, maraschino cherries and bags of platano chips later (I’ll let you guess what was for whom) we finally burn past the airport, one of the last landmarks on Carretera Norte out of the city. Next is Tipitapa (which, according to Amira, has the distinction of being the “Armpit of Nicaragua”- although this claim is hereto unchallenged and uninvestigated, so the author wishes to add the caveat that it is not necessarily the opinion of herself, MEDA, blogspot nor, evidently, the inhabitants of Tipitapa itself).

We got about 40 minutes out of the city and Wendy noticed the engine light go on. Next thing you know there is some serious steam coming out. We pull over behind a nice young girl who could not have been more than my own age, changing her own tire with her two brothers and grandmother. As she has the orange triangles already out on the road we decide to make use of that, seeing as we clearly don’t have these legally-required items (but then again, we let our car overheat after 40 minutes of driving, what do you expect?). This girl comes over and, as she has already finished changing her own tire, she takes charge of our situation. (Can I just reiterate that she changed her own tire. Herself).

Now I would just like to say that, in my defence, I know a little about cars- enough to be safe, and not have to differentiate them based largely on colour. But as this was not my car, and was a car that has had a plethora of problems lately, we really should have known…

So it’s not looking so good out there on the barren highway. Young miss flags down a truck carrying- among other useful tools in such situations- a large group of men, and asks if they are carrying any rope. Rope! Why didn’t I think of that! If we just melt the rope down, we can pour it around and it will cool off the rad… Not quite. Next thing I realize she is explaining to me how the guys are going to tie the rope between our two cars and tow us to the next town. Sweet. The rope is about oh, gosh let’s be generous and say 8 ft. Better double that over, so its good and strong. There, that puts a few feet between our car and hers.

On the other hand, considering that you have to wait 25 minutes for BCAA to drive four blocks over to you, I thought this might expedited the process rather than calling them. If you want to know what its like to drive three feet behind a cute little Mitsubishi click here.

Our nice little tow drops us off in Las Maderas, where some very helpful mecanicos rush out to meet us. They've see the rope tow before evidently. Before long it becomes apparent that we are not getting back in that car anytime today. Between Wendy's calls to the office-its a company car- and muttering obscenities- yeah that was mostly me- we finally discern that we will have to leave the old girl with this nice plump little mechanic.

Now we are faced with the ultimate question: there are two sides to the street. If we catch a bus on the right hand side of the highway, we go to Matagalpa. If we catch it on the other side, it's back to Managua. Clearly, the choice is already made- especially considering we are already on the right side- literally and figuratively- and that a bus appears within about 4.8 seconds. The swarm of helpful mecanicos then chase down the bus, yelling "Matgalpa! matagalpa! matagalpa! Chelitas! Chelitas! Chelitas!" which, loosely translates to: "Matagalpa! Matagalpa! Matagalpa! White girls! white girls! white girls!" (Don't judge me, that's what it means and that's what we get called). So I do what comes naturally in such situations: run. I shamelessly run and I jump into that bus. I almost rebound out because the back part where I get in is so packed that its literally shoulder-to-shoulder-to-back-to-butt-to-armpit. "Chelita! no hay espacio! que fumados!" (white girl! there ain't no space! You guys are crazy"). "Us guys" of course, was referring to me and the two guys working the bus and encouraging my entrance. Not to Wendy of Shannon of course, because they didn't get in the back of the bus. Nope I was back there, all by myself I soon realized. I assumed- nay, hoped that they got on the front. I sent them a text to make sure, which was about the only thing I could do as we were so tightly packed and my cell phone was pushed up against my chin in the pocket of one of the three bags I was able to grab while running for the bus.

So here I am in an autobuuuus. I am balancing entirely based on the grip provided by my right hand ring-finger on the luggage-rack pole . I have bags hanging off pretty much every limb. There is a guy who is becoming well-acquainted with both my elbow and the sweet smell of my deodorant's- ahem, if it was still working by this point.

And I couldn't be happier. What is this strange feeling coming over me? In place of the bad words, all that comes out are flowers of laughter. Hope springs forth within me. My heart bubbles over and spills onto Juan Carlos, the guy who is standing in the four inches of space between the last chair and the back wall, directly across from me. Why do Matagalpa-bound buses have this effect on me? Why have they taken my heart?

Answers to these questions and more to come post-haste.

posted by Kiki @ 2:38 p.m.