The Countryside...

Tuesday I returned from a trip. It was my first trip to the countryside since I have been here. The town is about two hours from the city. Thankfully the pavement goes all the way to this town in which my friends live. Just beyond this town the pavement stops. However the only paved road in the town is the main road. All the others are dusty dirt roads.

I don't know the best way to explain the vast difference that exists between my city and the countryside. It is almost like living in two different worlds. My friend Mark moved from Baltimore to Texas to go to school. He talked as if the transition was pretty tough. It was hard for him to adjust to a knew way of life, new assumptions, new traditions. The countryside here is even more extreme. There are more languages in this country than I can count. And there are numerous different tribes or people groups spread across the land. On the two-hour trip we took I was in the midst of four different peoples. That means they would each have different traditions and ways of living. There is some overlap but also great distinction.

Life in the countryside is peaceful. The pace of life is slower. In the city it is easy to go back into an American fast-paced lifestyle, with of course some differences caused by the third-world. Most of the time I was out there the electricity was out. I was in one of the last towns were electricity stretches in that direction.

It was a good visit. It was peaceful. It was refreshing. It was needed. I wish I could have stayed longer than the couple of days I was there.

I rode out in a car with my friends. I came back on the bus. I was terrified. I had heard only nightmare stories about the buses. My adventure on the bus revealed so much about the people here.

The buses don't leave on an exact schedule; they leave when they are full. We got to the station a little before nine. I had been made aware some buses are much better than others are. We tried to scout a decent looking one that was yelling the name of my city. I bought a ticket; it costs just under $2 USD. It looked like it might be a while so we told them we were going to go across the street to a café and wait. My friend Ben told me they would come get me when they were ready to leave.

We sat for a while and talked about what it looked like for people there to join our family. There are so many difficulties. We saw the bus start to pull out. It came around to a gas station where they loaded some large burlap sacks on top. The bus still didn't look full though. We waited a few more minutes and decided to go ahead and go wait at the bus.

When I bought my ticket the seller promised to reserve me a front seat. This isn't because I didn't want to sit near people. It is because typically the only open window in the bus is the driver's. All of the other people are terrified the wind will make them sick. Actually many of them vomit riding this way. We got on the bus and waited...and waited...and waited. We watched two other buses to the city pull in front of us, fill up, and leave. It wasn't looking like my bus was in much of a hurry. We chatted with nationals for a while, played with kids, bought a bottle of water. Actually we sent a kid to buy the water for me.

Eventually the waiting got to be too much. Ben went to see if they would put me on a bus that was actually leaving. He came back quickly and said, "Get your bags, hurry." We ran up to a bus that was literally pulling out. But they had one more seat. After a brief argument between six people of whether I could get on the bus, I climbed up the stairs and away we went.

That whole front seat thing...didn't happen on the new bus. I was in the very last seat. It was a bench stretching from side to side of the bus. It was five or six feet long and six of us were crammed in it. Buses here aren't made for Americans. We are typically both fatter and taller than they are. The seat in front of me sat so close that even sitting exactly upright my knees were up tight against the metal backing.

As we pulled out I had to buy another ticket. Somehow the transfer wasn't completely successful. As we pulled out there were about three windows open. One was right in front of me. Everyone started yelling at them and the windows were closed. Interestingly one man then turned to me and I think asked me if I wanted it open. Of course I did, but I also wanted to suit their culture. I said it was no problem. Just after that they chose to let the man in front of me open it again. It was a Godsend. I even got cold on one piece of the trip.

The man who wanted his window open seemed to be a bit more educated then most. He was in a blue oxford shirt and dress pants. He had brought a newspaper with him. He was pretty friendly. I assume he spoke some English but I never heard it. The two guys to my left were pretty quiet. I never heard a word. One slept. The other gnawed on sugar cane. It looks like a small piece of firewood. It is about 2 inches in diameter and about a foot long. He would peal the outside off and chew on the innards. Then he spit them into the floor after all the flavor was gone.

To the right sat a guy who was actually with about four or five who sat in front of me. At least two of them were Muslim, I could tell by their attire. They were all clearly together because they shared the local narcotic with one another. It is a leaf that they chew on. The numbers that partake in it here are overwhelming. It takes a lot of it to get a buzz so many spend all the money they make and then some trying to suffice their habit.

On the far right were two guys that I think must have been brothers. They looked a lot alike and shared a bag of traditional snacks together. They even shared some with me.

I tried to speak with them a bit. But my ignorance limited the conversation. I tried to sleep a bit. At one point I even pulled out my iPod. Imagine, not only are they staring at me because I am the only white guy. Now the white guy has a little white box with earphones in his hand.

The guess was that the two-hour trip would take about three and a half by bus. Luckily it was uneventful; I made it home in two and a half. It was a fun journey. I think I'll go somewhere by bus again sometime soon. This time I might take a friend though.

I love this place. I love these people.