Chicken Buses

Everyone knows what it is like to ride a school bus, right? Like most of you, I ride school buses almost everyday too. Here is Guatemala the main for of transportation is “chicken buses” as gringos know them but in Spanish are called “camionetas” These “camionets” are old school buses from the United States that have been brought to Gautemala, painted bright colors and provide transport for most of the population.

I assume you have many rules that you must follow on your ride to school. You have to stay in your seat at all times, only two to three to a seat, no standing and no crossing the white line at the front of the bus, well there are no rules on the camionetas. Most of the time there are three adults to a seat and maybe a child sitting on the lap of one of those adults, in addition to people standing in the aisle! Sometimes the buses are so full that I have to stand on the stairs of the bus. The “ayudante” or bus helper (he collects money and takes the packages on the top of bus on and off), will cram as many people as the bus will allow so that they can make more money! In my town many people live in rural areas so they only have a bus one time a week. If they want to come to town any other day they have to take what Guatemalans call “jalones”

Jalones are just someone with a pick up that gives you a ride to where you need to go. In order to go to one of my communities I have only have the option of taking a pick up ride. Many times the back of the pick up with crammed with 15-18 people depending on the size of the pick-up! I actually prefer to take jalones because you get to see the beautiful landscape so much better than you do from a camioneta! But the only bad thing about jalones is that they sometimes break down or cannot make it up a hill so you have to get out and push it up the hill!

I mentioned about that gringos call the camionetas “chicken buses,” they call them this because many times there are live chickens on the bus because people are transporting them to the market or home from the market. There are many things that the camioneta will carry, such as, baskets of food, vegetables and fruits, furniture, and almost anything else people need to transport.

I hope that you all enjoyed your postcards. There should be a picture or two of the camionetas or “chicken buses!”