Life on the Salvadoran Bus

I take bus to get most places in El Salvador. Sometimes I am lucky to get a ride from someone with a car or in the CRISPAZ or CFO truck. But mostly, I bus it, or I walk. I feel like you are faced with a lot of reality of the bus in El Salvador.

To give some background, there are two main types of busses. Big busses and little busses (microbusses). The big ones are mostly used school busses like I remember from grade school. The micros can be anything from smaller versions of the big bus or big vans. The micros are crazier and go faster. There is usually a driver and a person who jumps off at everystop and yells "CENTRO, CENTRO, SUBA SUBA, UNA CORDA, UNA CORDA" (Downtown, Downtown, get on, get on, a quarter, a quarter). The drivers tend to race each other and chase down customers, especially if they are the same number. Most are decorated with stickers or paint about God and Jesus or with women´s names. There are usually safety warnings and rules written in English. Sometimes there are bullet holes in the windows and they are usually dirty. Music on the busses can range from Ranchero to Reggaeton to American 80´s music. Sometimes they are so crowded that everyone is standing and some people are almost hanging out the door. Sometimes they are almost empty.

Bus passengers can be anyone. Men and women in business suits, mothers with small children, elderly people, students, mothers, fathers, children. Pretty much anyone who can´t afford to have a car, which is most people. Usually strangers don´t talk to each other. But it is not uncommon for a stranger to offer to hold your bag if there is no seating and you are standing and they are sitting next to you. Nor is it strange for strangers to give a hand to people who trip or drop something. Passengers can be anyone who pays the 25 cents.

Then there are the vendors. The people who make a living by selling things on the bus. They climb on the bus and the drivers never charge them. There are the common men, women and children yelling "CHICLE, CHICLE, CARAMELOS, CAREMELOS, AGUA, AGUA, PUPUUUUUSAS, PUPUUUUUSAS, MANGOS, MANGOS, CAPUCHINO, CAPUCHINOS" (Gum, Gum, Candy, Candy, Water, Water, Pupusas, Pupusas, Mango, Mango, Ice cream cone, ice cream cone). Then there are the newspaper vendors who stand up front and read sections of the paper in a loud voice to get people interested. Or the the people who pass out Mickey Mouse sticker, ballpoint pens and religious postcards and then stand in front of you and give you a big sales pitch before recollecting what they past out in hopes that some people will want to keep these treasures now that they have held them in their hands. Or the people who stand up in front and try to sell you a natural medicine that cures everything from obesity to cancer. These people can be anyone from small children, young women, old women, old men, young men, anyone, anyone. And people always buy from them. Even the guys selling the cancer medicine. Who knows if its to support the 8 year old kid trying to sell gum or if they really wanted that special pen. Both I think. I know I have bought from the vendors for both reasons.

They other category of people I will call the performers. This category includes my favorite people to see on the bus and some of my least favorite people. The least favorite is the people who stand up front and start to scream loudly about what will happen to all of us if we don´t accept God. Sometimes this includes a personal account. Sometimes the person is also selling cards with God phrases. They will stand up, yell for twenty minutes about sin, then sit down and wait quietly for the bus stop. Most people don´t even really seem to notice them. My favorite category is the musicians. Like the guys who play the guitar and the Andean music. I ALWAYS give them money because I enjoy it so much that I feel like I would be stealing if I didn´t. The other day I heard by far the best street performers I have seen here, two young guys playing guitar and singing Led Zepellin.

The last category is the beggars. Like the vendors and the performers, they are allowed on the bus without paying. Usually it is obvious they are homeless or living in very poor conditions. Sometimes they are disabled, or missing limbs. Sometimes they are children or parents with children. Sometimes they give a testimony about what has happened to them. The children don´t usually give a talk. A lot of them are addicted to sniffing glue, a habit common among the homeless here as it dulls pain and hunger. The really moving thing is how many people give money. I guess in a country where so many people struggle to get buy, its harder to place blame on the beggars and the homeless, its easier to see oneself in their shoes.

Salvadoran busses can be dangerous. I know so many people who have been robbed or pickpocketed on busses. Sometimes silently, sometimes violently. I have heard horror stories about acts of violence happening on busses that I sometimes take. I try to avoid taking the bus at night with this in mind. Or at least taking the bus alone at night.

Why am I writing all of this? Because I feel like I am constantly confronted with the Salvadoran reality on busses. Whether its the drivers, the passengers, the vendors, the performers or the beggars. Sometimes I imagine where these people will go when they get off the bus. Will the candy vendors make enough money to buy dinner for their family? Especially with the rising price of basic foods like beans or flour? How does the man preaching God feed himself? Where will that child sleep tonight? Sometimes I say a quiet prayer as these people step off the bus I´m on and onto a new one, a prayer that what they earn will be enough. Or I wonder about the bus driver. Have the gangs threatened him? What has he seen? Where does he live? I wonder, I wonder.

I read in the paper on Sunday that the bus fare was going up from 25 cents a ride to 30 cents to to a hike in gasoline prices. I can only imagine what that will bring...

The Veracruz Breakers

I've realized I haven't written to much about the actual youth that I am working with, besides the intro to CFO that I gave in the middle of February. So I'm going to write a little bit about one of the groups that CFO works with that calls themselves "The Veracruz Breakers." As in the break dancing boys from Veracruz (a neighborhood in Mejicanos).

The guys started working with CFO last year when the Parish began to allow them to use one of the community center spaces to practice breakdancing three times a week. On Thursdays they meet in CFO with Ada, Marcos and I to do workshops around themes like leadership, human rights or self-identity. They practice break on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2-5 and they are GOOD. That is probably what happens from practicing as often as they do, added to the fact that they are very dedicated to the Hip Hop Movement. Today I went to see them dance as I had never been to the actual community where they live (the Parish itself is further down the hill closer to the Center of Mejicanos). At one point I asked Maicol (prounounced like Michael) where they got their songs. He told me that they get all their stuff off the internet at ciber cafe's. That's also how they learned all their moves, by looking it up on YouTube. What a crazy globalized world we live in where Salvadoran boys are using the internet to teach themselves to breakdance and to learn about hip hop culture. Maybe someday they will put their own video on YouTube and you can all see how good they are. Last year through CFO and a music group they know, they were able to produce a song about their lives in El Salvador. It's also very impressive.

Now I know a lot of people who relate Hip Hop to crime and delinquency, which is too bad since there is a lot of culture and history in the whole movement. Here in El Salvador, breakdancing and hip hop music has actually helped to keep these guys out of violence. You see, Veracruz or more specifically the colonia Montreal, where they live, has a lot of gang problems. There is a lot of violence and there is also a lot of police oppression directed towards young Salvadoran men. Especially anyone with a tattoo, or anyone who dresses a certain way. Most of these guys have had run ins with the police or with gangs. Almost all of them could't afford to go to high school. Almost all of them are unable to find work. A lot of them were raised by single mothers and have family in the United States. Today after I had English class with one of the guys, Saul, he told me about how the Earthquake in 2001 devastated this community, destroying homes and killing people. Many of them were not able to rebuild their homes for a few years as they recieved no governmental assistance.

Despite all of this, the guys are pretty normal teenage guys. Most of them are the age of my little sister (18), give or take a few years. So its very different from working with some of our other groups who are younger and have more girls. Sometimes its harder to get to know them because of this and I feel frustrated that culture, language and gender can be such barriers. But today was a good day. Seeing the neighborhood where they lived helped me understand a little more where they come from. Most of my time with them is spent at CFO where they all congregate on Thursdays and often drop by other times during the week. Right now, four of them are waiting to hear back from a scholarship that we helped them apply for to do a research project on youth in El Salvador. We'll see how it goes, though I think their application was pretty impressive. Maybe I'm biased though.

Anyway, thats a closer work at who I'm working with. Someday maybe I'll try to figure out YouTube and how to put a video of them on it. Until then, I hope my description was enough.

peace and love, -Laura