Busses

There is a bus ride, we try to avoid if possible, but to some places, the yellow bus is the only one to take. To Tia Violetta's or the Zoo.  The ride, just over an hour, past the Volvo (the busiest horn honking, crazy drivers intersection), the mountain of houses. We take our seat in the back of the bus, where the husband can stretch out his long Peruvian legs. The back is bouncier over the pot-holed street. I get a window seat, a seat to watch those get on and off the bus. I put my head phones in to listen to familiar music or a BYU devotional to try and block out the sound.

 

Riding the bus in Peru, as one writer put it, at times defies the law of gravity.  With your community of fellow bus riders, gritting their teeth against the bumps and movement of the bus, we are in the hands of the driver. Has he ever been a rider?  I wonder sometimes the way he rushes ahead, trying to pass others just to come to a screeching halt at the lift of an arm at the next corner.  Does he know what it is like when you cannot firmly plant  your feet in a shoulder width stance of stability; because there are too many feet?  Maybe he understands that with the press of bodies, no one is going anywhere.