With one week of classes remaining, I can't stop myself from thinking about going home, starting school, and getting my student on. Since my previous post about finally getting into a medical school, I have been taken off the waitlist at a couple more schools and I have decided to attend a state school in Brooklyn called Downstate. I decided to switch from the University at Buffalo for a number of reasons, the most important being closer proximity to my family and the advantages that will come from serving a population as diverse as Brooklyn's.
Surprisingly, my biggest concern with going to Buffalo wasn't the cold and snow (I lived in South Bend for four years; ice water runs through my veins), but rather the thought of not having a lot of opportunity to keep up with my Spanish and losing it after having worked so hard to learn it in the first place. There's little doubt in my mind that my Spanish will be well utilized in Brooklyn, and if med school is going to prevent me from traveling abroad in the next four years, at least I will still have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world who end up in NYC hospitals.
Times are a Changing
I have written before about how ridiculous the buses in this country can be, but I have noticed recently that things are changing. The first time I realized something was different was when I went to Tena and at one point the bus was stopped by the police. Buses usually fill up their seats at the terminal, and then when they leave, stop along the way to pick up more people to fill in the standing room until 50+ people are simultaneously getting to second base with each other in the aisle.
This apparently wasn't O.K. with the police in Tena though, because the bus driver told everyone who was standing up that they had to get off the bus in between towns. The people got really angry and demanded to know why the driver let them on if they weren't allowed to be there, and after a while of no one obeying the driver's orders, the bus just took off again, which I assume either means the driver bribed the cops or the police let him slide since it was a new rule at the time.
I saw this new regulation in action a second time on the way back from a conference in Quito. One of my friends mentioned that he saw a cop put a sticker on the bus door before it left the terminal, and that it was probably to signal to the cops at the next checkpoint whether the bus opened the door (breaking the sticker in the process) and let in more people on the streets.
I guess that was in fact the purpose of the sticker, because every time we stopped to pick people up outside of the terminal, they had to climb in through the window. It was funny to watch people climbing to reach the high windows then squirming and struggling with all their might to get up and through. Afterward, people on the street helped to toss their bags and boxes up as well. I would have taken pictures or a video, but I feared that it would upset the people working on the bus because it was evidence of them doing an illegal activity. I didn't want to be like that guy who got Michael Phelps into trouble for snapping a picture of him taking a hit from a bong, so I kept the camera in my bag and assured myself that my words would do the incident justice.
The most recent change I noticed happened at a more local level on one of the normal buses that runs only in Ambato. The guy on the bus who was collecting people's fares looked out the window before a stop and warned the bus driver to come to a complete stop because police were nearby.
I'm not sure if the government will continue to regulate public buses like this, but hopefully they do because although it will probably raise bus fares since drivers will want to compensate for the fewer number of passengers they can take, it would mean safer and more efficient traveling for Ecuadorians who will no longer have to jump on/off moving buses and endure numerous, unofficial stops along the way to pick up passengers.
Dolla Bills Ya'll
I cannot comprehend why the twenty dollar bill exists in Ecuador. Everything here is so cheap that it is almost always impossible to use a bill that big for everyday purchases, and because it is so difficult to use, people are usually very unwilling to change you and give up their precious small bills and Sacajawea dollars.
The other day I wanted to take a cab to the mall, a one dollar fare. However, all I had was a twenty. The last time I tried to get away with paying a cab with a twenty the driver flipped out, stopped at a drug store, and demanded that I buy something to get some smaller bills to pay him with.
With that experience in mind, I walked around the block asking various businesses if they could change me. I went to four different places before I found someone that even let me finish my sentence and hooked me up with some more manageable bills.
It's pretty wild to think that when I go to work at SECAP I bring $1.25 with me: twenty-five cents for the bus and a dollar in case of an emergency. When I go back to the States I won't have any problems with using twenties anymore, but I will have to get accustomed to bringing more money than a handful of change when I go out.
Peru
Although I finish work this coming Thursday, I have left myself three more weeks here to do some traveling before returning home. My partner in crime and travel, Caitlin, will be accompanying me along with another teacher friend, Asia, to gallivant around Peru. The list of destinations includes: Lima, Cusco, Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca, and Arequipa. La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia, may or may not happen now that we have discovered the $135 visa charge for American visitors. In any case, we will be plenty busy taking buses for days at a time and doing the main event of our journey: a five-day hike up to the ruins at Machu Picchu.
Expect to see lots of photos of me alone in the ruins, gazing thoughtfully into the distance as I ponder something very profound about life and how my South American experience has changed me as a person. It'll be just like that scene from Motorcycle Diaries, although I hope my version doesn't end with me becoming a communist revolutionary.
 |
| This image will be available on t-shirts starting next week for only $19.99 |
No comments:
Post a Comment