Yesterday we had a full day in the AsoFénix office in
Managua. We left our house at 6:05
am to catch a taxi in town to take us to the highway. That was about a half-hour wait and then waiting for the bus
did not take long at all. We
hopped on and it was empty!! What
a nice surprise for once! We found
seats in the front and were able to work on the bus as we commuted into the
capital.
We got off at the airport and bought latte’s to jump-start
our day, which is a rare treat!
Later we walked to the office, just ten minutes away. We met in our outdoors “conference
area” which has a tin roof in full sun.
From 8:30 am to 12:30 pm we were sweating like crazy in the humid heat in
our meeting with three others. The
day went well and we were able to accomplish a lot, so that felt really
good! To be honest, we cannot
usually say our office visits are that great, so it was refreshing to have a
positive and productive day there!
We left the office to catch a bus home in front of the
airport at 4:30 pm. It was taking forever to catch a bus and we were
standing in the beating, hot sun with our heavy backpacks filled with clean
laundry and laptops! Finally a Boaco bus stops for us, but only sees us
at the last minute and goes way beyond where we were standing. We
thought, "well, got passed again by a bus," but then he
stopped. We ran the equivalent of a block to catch the bus as it was
waiting on us! Have in mind that this is an old school bus from the
states, so the back emergency door is used as a normal entrance to the bus. We
climbed up into the back of the bus and it starts rolling before our feet even
left the pavement. The ayudante (bus helper) began yelling and shoving us into the
people in front of us as we could hardly fit. It was horrible and I told
the ayudante that this was ridiculous and I wanted to get off because it was so
full, and Nate still had his butt hanging out the back door as we were
going. So they keep yelling at people to move to the front (even though
it's full throughout) and keep shoving us further into the bus. It was a
headache! So we make our way through to the middle with our two big
backpacks on our shoulders. We find a little area to stand and I see a
clearing in the luggage rack above but several people down. Sine I couldn’t reach from where I was
standing, I beg the young guy with headphones to help me get our backpacks up
on the rack. He did and we
breathed a sigh of relief. It was
so hot and we were packed in the metal bus like a can of sardines. All windows were open, yet everyone was
sweating profusely.
I try to make a little more room for myself and note the
woman on the seat below me is on the edge of her seat taking up precious inches
of isle room where I could stand.
I was annoyed by her, and thought, why is she trying to take up even
more space when she has a seat! I
commented to Nate in English how she was pushing into my legs and kept inching
off the seat in my direction. As I
continued to access why she was being that way, I realized there was something
(sticky, perhaps?) on the middle of her seat and she was avoiding sitting in
it. Okay, more reason to not be
annoyed with her.
The ride continues, and then the five-gallon buckets lying
on their side near Nate start dripping oil onto the woman below us. Mystery solved as to what was on her
seat, but now it was slowly dripping on her face and clothes. The leaking buckets were not claimed by
anyone, nor did anyone pitch in to help out when she asked for a rag. My backpack was too far to reach to get
some tissues. Nate, the woman and
I all felt helpless in the situation.
Finally the man beside me left and I could move a little closer to my
bags to reach the handy wet ones I keep there in case of random instances as
such. So I passed wet ones out to
the woman and Nate as they were cleaning up the mess.
As soon as the woman wiped up herself and her seat, she
offered me the edge of her seat to share with her and her daughter. I kindly accepted and thought back to
how I was annoyed with this woman just twenty minutes earlier and now she was
offering me an edge of her seat on the bus. It goes to show how a small act of kindness can go a long
way!
We began talking and she asked me which state I was
from. I said, Colorado and she was
so surprised. She lived in
Westminster, Colorado for nine years (a fifteen-minute drive from
Boulder). She was working in a
McDonald's on Federal for nine years and living with her husband and
daughter. She was back in Nicaragua
for two months to visit her family. She grew up in a small community called San
Diego (about 20 minutes from us in Teustepe), but has lived in the states for
14 years. I work with several
women in San Diego and we discovered one woman was her neighbor and she went to
high school with her. Such a small
world! We were both floored as we
shared these details and talked for over a half hour, sharing a seat in a very full
bus.
Thank you, Selmira for sharing your seat with me on the
bus. It was great to hear your
stories and share experiences with you.
Sometimes it is these chance encounters that make our lives richer and
help us to realize how interconnected we are in this small world.
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