So I´m at a bit of a crossroads. I have been working for Tono for a little over a week now. Its been great, he has me designing the flooring in his house, geometrically analyzing ancient mayan artifacts in CAD, and checking for grammatical errors in the book he´s writing. Everything at work is good… except the commute. In order to get to zone 10 of Guatemala City for 8:00 I need to leave Antigua at 5:15am. This is not an uncommon time, Fabiola (1 of my Guatemalan sisters) leaves a little before 5:00 in order to get a seat on the bus and to beat the morning traffic. I also need to be sure to make it back to the bus before dark because things tend to get a bit dicey once the sun goes down.
I´ve found a bus stop that allows me to get off the bus and walk about 30 min to work (which I don´t mind, its through a nice neighborhood), but on the way home, the bus doesn´t leave from the same place and I need to take a cab. A bit of a pain in the ass… I´m still trying to work out a system to make this a bit more do-able.
Empty Camioneta. This was a bit of a risky shot to take, better to not flash cameras, valubles, etc...
And these things get ·Full·
This picture in no way does the camoneta experience justice. Just to paint the picture here, one must understand what camionetas are. Camionetas are old US schoolbuses that have been converted into coal burning (based on the jet-black smoke they emmit), music blasting, clown car acting, race machines. They are painted up in racey colors and have names like “Santa Maria” across their windshields. A hairpin turn is no reason to slow down or even touch the brakes in one of these things. And they play everything from Raggaeton to Spanish Pop to Britney Spears.
Camioneta
The middle corridor is only wide enough to walk down it sideways. During peak time there are three people in each seat, and the entire corridor is filled with people standing. By the way, when 3 people are in a seat, that means that the third person is sitting halfway in the aisle, do this on both sides and there´s no isle… But people still manage to fit in. And the best part is when the guy comes to collect the money. If you are riding standing up, he´s coming toward you, and you know he has to take your money and then somehow get by you. The first time this happened, I was thinking “Not really sure how this is going to work here but lets see what happens”, but after alot of cramming and completely disregarding others´personal space, he somehow manages to get by…
Jaime told me a joke about the camionetas here, “How many Guatemalan´s can you fit on a camioneta? Two more, there´s always room for 2 more… and this really isn´t a joke, you see it every day.
This weekend I should be borrowing a macbook from Tono so I can use it in Antigua. I´m hoping that this will really lessen the number of times I need to go to the office… The house is here in Antigua, so the ideal situation would be to work here and just walk over to the house whenever I need to meet with Tono (he comes 2-3 times a week) or if I need to check up on anything.
