Imagine This

Imagine this-- you´re at the bus station, sitting on the bus, mentally preparing for the journey...come to think of it, you´ve been prepared for this journey since you first got on the same school bus so many years ago. ¨Blue Bird Body Co.¨ you familiarly read, and those forest green pleather seat covers are etched into your brain forever. The proprietor of this public transport vehicle may have painted over the deep yellow you remember, but deep down you know it´s the same bus. Even back then bus driver´s fan didn´t work, and instead sat collecting dust from the time you can remember.

Things have only changed slightly. The bus driver is still wearing a NY Yankees baseball cap, but now, there are Catholic phrases stencilled on most parts of the bus. ¨Dios es salvaje¨ seems to be the theme of this one, though the driver doesn´t seem to be bought into this idea when he charges you, the Gringo, 25% more than the local fare. The Pioneer brand stereo blasts out Reggaeton too early in the morning...well, mostly it blasts white noise, but familiar sounds escape intermittently. When you were younger you were forced to go to school, now you´re forced to listen to this crap.

A heavy set woman walks up the stairway entrance to the bus, awkwardly managing to make it up both stairs. She is a bit past forty, and you can tell from her hips that she abides by the Catholic law prohibiting contraceptives. Her dark black, curly hair (no, not the ones under her arm or on her chin) is pulled back and tucked under a camouflaged baseball cap. She stuffs her plastic bags--full of rice, ripe plantains and tortillas--into the racks above her head, and for the first time you are exposed to her light brown sleeveless t-shirt. It is easy to read, as the rolls of her stomach fill out the shirt nicely, and you realize that it says ¨single and ready to mingle¨. The shirt color isn´t appealing by itself, but complemented by the sky blue apron hanging from her waist--flower prints on the sides--she looks ravishing.

As you contemplate asking her out for a drink that night, your thoughts are interrupted by the constant stream of people that come on the bus selling fried chicken, mango with chili, sodas, plantains, and even the odd toothbrush/cigarette lighter combination. Each sales lady pushes her wide hips through a quickly filling bus, and after not selling anything (again! ughh), bumps you for the second time on her way out. The irony of the sign, which reads, ¨Blue Bird All American¨ is not lost on you.

The bus fills up, to the point where three adults are sitting where two children used to fit, and you can´t help but look up at that moment and read the Blue Bird sign that says, ¨Your children´s safety is our business¨. And then ¨Kiss Me¨ comes on the radio (click here if you don´t know the corny song I´m talking about). The irony, as you see it: A Sandinista revolution kicked the Imperialists out of the nation and somehow, nearly 30 years later, the country is importing Imperialist trash--mechanically and musically.

As you stick in earplugs to drown out the constant noise of honking, you relax back into your seat, where, or course, your knees don´t fit, and think, ¨yes, this is Central America¨...

...and then a fat woman in a moo moo walks onto the bus carrying a live chicken upside down by its feet, and you finally understand why this transportation is known as the chicken bus.

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