First Chicken Bus Adventure
Trip Start
Aug 01, 2007
1
9
39
Trip End
Sep 16, 2007
Almolonga, Guatemala
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
I watched as some men where packing carrots for export to other carrots. The way they washed the carrots in a murkey brown water and jammed the carrots into a large bag was all very interesting. It drove home the need to ALWAYS wash your veggies or fruits before eatting. I saw one man filling an empty bag of urea with carrots. I know that I am guilty of eatting fruis and veggies without washing them...afer seeing how the crops are cleaned and bagged, I will, from now on, always wash my veggies.
The village has a large vegtable market on Wedensday and Saurday mornings. It was a very crazy exerience and I kept an eye on my teacher for fear of getting lost among the crowd. The central plaza is ringed with huge disel spewing trucks and crammed with people from all over the mountains. Along the outskirts of the marke lie piles of bad radishes or carrots half decomposing. The woman of the town are identified by their bold orange zigzag huiiles and woven headbands.
To get to the town, I took on of Guatemala“s famous “chicken buses.“ An experience that an be compared to no other. The bus is easily recognized by a thick, black, noious fume that come from the back of the bus. The buses are all old school buses from the US brightly colored and contain radios that blast a mixture of some sort of techno-spanish rap. These buses are able to cram their seats, ailes and roofs with passengers. The driver is somebody who fears nothing and it able to naviagate the steep hills and sharp curves at hair-raising speeds. However, it is dirt cheap to use the “chicken bus“ if only going a short distance. The bus also has a “helper“. This person is usually underage and is responsible for collecting the fare and jumping off the bus when needed to help the driver navigate the streets (ie backing up).
During the late afternoon their was an interesting seminar on the political system of Guatemala. While technically the country is a Democracy, it is really an Oligarchy that uses the government as a tool for the 40 or so families that control the country. The politically system is very corupt and, as such, most people do not vote. Additionally, it is very hard to decide who to vote for because there are 14-16 political parties that run in the president election! The local government tells the citizens, most of who can not read or write, who to vote for by indicating the faces of the desired canidates on the billboard along the highway. Since there are so many people to vote for nobody wins by more than 20 percent. There is no majority...
Comments
eh...
well corruption's always been rampant down there.
good to know we live in america where we at least can vote out some suckers.