Kelp, Face Masks, Bus Drivers, and Flames

I should invent a funny story or joke about kelp, face masks, bus drivers and flames, but I’m not that clever. Instead I’ll just post commentary about my day yesterday. However, the clever among you may endeavor to spin a funnier story from those four elements, and I’ll reward the winner with applause and compliments.

Yesterday, instead of returning to Jaltepec to try again at ACA, I decided to go buy groceries at the Rich People Fancy-Pants Import Store in San Antonio: SuperLake. This is where one can find luxury items like asparagus and whole wheat flour. Or Oreos and Skittles, if that’s what you fancy.

I have mixed feelings about the place. On the one hand, I much prefer to shop here than at the new Wal-Mart that popped up a few months ago, which has since gained great popularity and has been successful at broadcasting how it offers lower prices, strengthens community, and helps families. These are the only two places where I can find many of the foods I so dearly want, and I choose SuperLake.

On the other hand, shopping at SuperLake is like being left alone in a room with a chocolate cake that belongs to someone else. I can’t afford a lot of the temptations I see on the shelves – like the tiny $29 jar of almond butter. Though, to extend this analogy, just as I would probably try to swipe a little of the chocolate frosting from the side of the cake, such that surely no one will notice, I occasionally tell my financially responsible self to look the other way while I throw something pricey into the shopping basket. Yesterday’s frosting: fresh tofu. It’s the first time I’ve seen it down here. I can hardly believe it. How could I not buy it??

So, I bought one small bag of groceries, which cost a week’s wages, if I were even employed, that is.

On my trip there and back, I noticed that locals have begun to wear face masks. I figure it’s only a matter of days before our area becomes as quiet as Mexico City, where news footage shows public life has virtually come to a halt.

On this topic, life here continues to be dominated by swine flu. Everyone is waiting to hear of the first confirmed cases in the state – probably in Guadalajara or Puerto Vallarta. All the local festivities that are coming up, including a number of May Day parties and a local food festival, have been cancelled, and now the government is telling pregnant and nursing women to stay at home and to not go to work.

I left the house anyway, as I was saying, not to go to work, because I remain gainlessly unemployed, but to pursue my hobby, grocery shopping.

It was on my way to San Antonio that I decided to share a little more with you about how great buses are.

One of the local bus lines:
(I took from http://www.sail-puravida.com/photo.htm)

First, dispense with the idea that buses run on any kind of schedule, or that you have any way of discovering when buses run, where they go, or when they might stop running. Naturally, there is no posted information, in part because there are no bus stops, but also because that’s just not the kind of thing we do here in Mexico. That would be like posting street signs – entirely unnecessary. Anyway, if we went to the trouble of posting information, we’d also have to put in all the work to make sure the information was inaccurate or at least presented in a misleading way. It would be a lot of unnecessary work.

Hailing a bus is kind of like hailing a cab, you leap into the street, jump up and down and waive an arm in the air. Sometimes, though, the buses won’t take you where you want them too, which is why it’s important to state your destination when you board. This provides the driver the opportunity to growl at you if he doesn’t like your destination, and you can quickly disembark. In general, though, buses will stop pretty much anywhere to let passengers on or off.

My favorite part of taking the bus is, without a doubt, the drivers. They really make the experience. Bus drivers eat, smoke cigarettes, flirt with passengers, yell obscenities at other drivers, hold long cell phone conversations, and pretty much do whatever they want while driving. Sometimes they play their favorite song on repeat on the stereo. I’ve been on a bus that scared a horse, and consequently suffered a cracked windshield. I’ve had a driver side-swipe a building, and, no, not stop. I’ve had drivers stop to buy snacks from street vendors. And I’ve had countless drivers navigate in reverse for multiple blocks because they couldn’t fit the bus past a parked vehicle on a narrow street.

So it was no surprise when yesterday’s driver, on the way to San Antonio, stopped the bus to chat with an associate. The driver eventually exited the bus to conduct some kind of business, it was unclear what kind. He was gone five minutes or more, and we all just waited, as did the vehicles behind us. Probably he had some kind of an emergency, like seeing his friend’s new truck or placing a bet on a soccer match.

The driver on the way back from San Antonio, however, was even more fun. Unlike many of the local drivers that decorate their buses with rosaries, crucifixes and the Virgin of Guadalupe, this man had chosen Disney stickers and girlie posters, which is, I think, a natural combination. Also, he had a custom stereo system, which allowed him to blast his favorite dancehall ballads, effectively transforming his bus into a discotheque. He even picked up a few cute women along the way, to lean on his shoulders and laugh at his jokes. Why not, I guess.

Drivers can really add a little pizzazz to an otherwise mundane trip.

To be clear, though, these are local buses. There are fewer options for local travel. For distance travel by bus, one can choose luxury lines, which are very comfortable and do not allow chickens on board. In truth, I find the bus system down here to be much better than in the US. Buses run frequently and go basically anywhere. They’re very affordable too. Because many people don’t have cars, the bus system is very… what’s the word? Robust.

In other news, our mountain is on fire. It’s been hot, highs in the mid to upper 30s (upper 90s in Fahrenheit), and dry. Something set a spark yesterday, and various parts of the mountain burned all day and through the night. The smoke has been really terrible, but seeing the flames from our window was kind of neat. No one is very alarmed, which is probably because all the building are constructed of brick, concrete, and adobe. Floods are a bigger concern than fire here. And I hope I haven’t just invited disaster, because the rainy season should begin within the next few weeks…