The First Big “Oops!”

Once when I was in the second or third grade, I made the mistake of falling asleep on the bus on the way home from school. I was so tired I didn’t wake up until after my stop, when most other people were off the bus. Terrified, I started panicking thinking I for sure was going to have to sleep on the bus and go to school in the same bus the next day. Fortunately the bus driver noticed me and (of course) took me back to the right stop where mom was anxiously waiting. Crisis averted! Little did I know the same scenario would take place approximately 10 years later here in Argentina.

The truth is, the buses here are insane. They’re not quite at the same status as the mutatos of Kenya, but luckily there I had Wiclif chaperoning us around everywhere. Here, I’m trying to figure things out for myself and… well the best way to learn is through mistakes right?

As a brief introduction to the insanity of Mendoza public transportation, I’ll give you a quick overview. There are 12 different bus circuits here, and each of the twelve has different buses with different routes. So circuit 5 has buses 72 and 74 which is how I get to la Universidad de Congresso, but also has buses 54 and 51 which takes you God knows where. And there are 12 circuits!! I can also use circuit 3 to get home… I think. So you see how crazy this is.

To add to the madness, you have to push a button to get off the bus at the correct stop, which is difficult when:

1.  there are ten million people on the bus (an approximation) squashed around you
2.  you have to be constantly aware of those ten million people around you for pitpockets,
3.  the buses are stick shifts and the driver’s goal is to knock as many people to the floor as possible, making anything but holding on for dear life pretty much impossible,
4. you speak the local language at about the level of a second or third grader.

At this point, I’m sure you know where this is going.

So I’m on the bus, craning to see where I should get off, but between all the variables listed above, “oops!” I watched my street pass by in a blur. I decided I’d just wait till the next stop (they are fairly frequent) and walk back a little ways except that no one else near the button apparently live anywhere by me. So, just like so many years ago, I watched as the scenery I knew melted away and I enter a part of town not even on the local map.

Unlike 10 years ago, I tried to remain calm and made up my mind that I’ll just wait and see where this bus takes me. I figured it was on some kind of circuit and would eventually take me back to town. I was also a bit sketched about the neighborhood and the bus made frequent stops in areas that I didn’t recognize. At many stops, the signs were completely worn and it wasn’t even possible to see which other buses, if any, frequented there. I also had a lot to lose. I had my camera with me from a tour I’d taken early with my IFSA program AND my passport as I had to make photocopies for my Visa.

Staying on the bus was my best bet I figured, but as the bus traveled farther and farther west and north, I started to get more scared. How big was the route? More and more people started trickling from the bus, until finally, I was the last person still sitting there when…

…we pulled into the bus depot. It wasn’t a circle; it’s a line with an ending. Totally embarrassed, I asked the driver if we were going to return to the city center. “No” he said, but taking pity on me (the deer in the headlights look probably helped) he spoke with the other bus drivers and decided to head back on his route right away to take me back to my stop. With relief we picked up more people on the way back and I started to recognize places along the way. Many times the driver greeted youth who got on the bus and seemed to be friends with many of them. That was the moment that I thanked God for putting me on that particular bus with a driver who has a soft spot for young people. Who knows where I would have ended up otherwise?

In the end, I didn’t have to spend the night on the bus, just like I had feared when I was in elementary school; I just had to admit a big oops on my part to a very friendly bus driver. Looking back, I’m still really glad I stayed on the bus. What an adventure!

-Lisa en Argentina