Life without a car

As some of you may know (or may not know), as peace corps volunteers we are not allowed to drive during our service. 27 months of walking around and living at the mercy of public transportation in a third world country is an interesting experience.

While in our sites, we mostly walk around. Even Javi and I, who live in one of the bigger cities peace corps volunteers live in (at least in Honduras) get almost everywhere we need by walking. Right now, because of the blazing sun, I carry around an umbrella for shade. Luckily most women do that here so no one thinks I'm a freak or anything. Sometimes, if we've got a 30 minute walk in front of us, or a lot of heavy groceries, we will spring 15 lempiras each ($.75) for a taxi ride. The taxis here, by the way, scare many foreign tourists who are not used to seeing these vehicles (in such a dilapidated shape) actually functioning. That price only works in Comayagua. (Its different in different cities.) In the big cities you've gotta negociate the price BEFORE climing in and arriving at your destination to avoid getting ripped off.

Moving around the country requires a combination of riding buses, walking and catching a taxi. Buses come in various sizes, ages, state of repair or disrepair, and amount of people riding in them. We've ridden in luxury buses where you got a movie and a snack (okay, that one was when my mom was here and she paid) and we've ridden in "chicken buses" (converted American school buses) so packed with people you've got buckets and elbows and luggage coming at you from all directions....and then everything in between.

On a recent trip, we snapped off some pictures.

Here are some of the guys waiting on the side of the country's main thoroughfare for a bus to stop:



(Nice road, huh? Thanks USAID!)

Normally, the strategy is to put the girls out on the side of the road, with the guys waiting off to the side. This is very important when trying to get a "jalon" (a hitch) in the back of someone's pickup. You can imagine why this strategy works better. However, this day we were tired of waiting in the sun, so the ladies passed the time in the shade:

That's me on the far left, reading a Newsweek. Peace corps provides it for free, so for a lot of us, we know mostly about world events and happenings at home through the pages of this magazine. Thankfully, with the internet, its not our only source.

Here's later on in the trip, "filling the tank:"

Okay, to be honest, this is not how its usually done. Of course there are regular gas stations here. But, there was a diesel shortage the last few weeks - the government subsidizes fuel, so you can just imagine the effects of supply and demand. It was on short supply this day (due to rationing) and we had to stop at various places before anybody had any gas. This gas station attendant had to carry it out in 5 gallon buckets and they filled'er up with a cut off water jug.

In the picture above (with the ladies), two of us were talking about before coming here we used to think of our cars as "rights" and not the privileges that they really are. You feel like you "deserve" a car, and I guess, why not....when everybody else has it? But here, only the rich have nice cars, and SOME middle class folks have decent older cars. Everybody else gets around like we do, and that is a lot of people.

Its been fun to do without a car for awhile, although, don't get me wrong, I miss mine!