Phrase of the Day:
las palomas- the doves. Nice name for a town, eh?
pio pio- what chicks say
Saying of the Day:
La que de amarilla se viste, a su hermosura se atiene. - Really rough translation: People dressed in yellow think they're hot @#$%.Or think that they have a really nice body. Wish I had learned this saying before buying a yellow shirt....especially a yellow polo shirt that gives me a uniboob and ads easily 10 pounds to my figure. O the fabulous fashion of Peace Corps service...
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I had some excellent #gringafails on the way to work today. I was supposed to meet one of my counterpart teachers in his home in a nearby community, Las Palomas, at 9 am to plan our classes for this afternoon. This did not happen.
I left my house conservatively at 8:15 am. The community where I was working today is not really that far away from my town, maybe 15 miles max, but transport there is an interesting conundrum. I can get a taxi to take me there, but if I am the only passenger, occasionally I get charged an obscene fare roughly equivalent to $3.50 US (this is exorbitant given how much teachers make round here). So, unless I run across another person who happens to be going that way, I take a taxi to the junction and then wait for a bus to pass. There are usually plenty of buses that go by at this hour, but the majority inconveniently take a 15 minute rest stop between the junction and my destination. Hence, the need to leave my house 45 minutes early, por si acaso...
As I was walking to the taxi stop, I ran into the principal from one of my schools. Did you wake up as a chicken? he rhetorically asked me. I laughed nervously, wondering if that was some sort of an idiom that I didn't know yet. When I got to the bus stop, I realized I had narrowly missed a taxi, but I noticed a bunch of other teachers were hanging around, including the vice-principal of the school I was going to.
While I had not woken up as a chicken, as far as I could tell, I had woken up grumpily, to wash laundry at 5:30 am after having nightmares that everyone I knew was dead. So I was not really in the mood to chat with anyone,despite the fact that the town drunk was trying to talk my ear off. I fumed and tried to just sit quietly, ruing the fact that I hadn't made another cup of coffee. No more taxis went by for easily 15 minutes.
Then, I saw the mini bus that goes to Las Palomas. The mini bus has a schedule that this notoriously unschedule like. From what I can tell, it leaves sometime between 8 and 11 am every day. I have never actually managed to take it. But I saw it drive into town and figured it would pick up some more passengers and leave. Great. I would take the mini bus and save a dollar.
After waiting for 30 minutes without sighting the minibus again, and having turned down several taxi rides, I was becoming concerned about actually arriving to Las Palomas ever, never mind on time without major embarrassment. So when the minibus zoomed by, I leapt up off the rock where I was sitting and ran towards it. It left me in the dust, literally. All the teachers were like, "Where are you trying to go, anyway?" When I told them Las Palomas, they told me that the bus wasn't leaving until 10 am and that they could bring me in their van since they were taking a trip to a city in the same direction. Fabulous, a free ride! The only thing PCVs like more than free food. After another few minutes, we climbed into their van. Then, we sat for 15 more minutes. Ironically, while I was waiting in the van, the bus to Las Palomas left. It was now 9:15. Then we went to the car garage to put more oil in the van. More sitting. The driver dirtied his shirt in the process of putting oil in the van, and so we drove back to his house so he could change.
Finally, we hit the road. The principal, who is quite the jokester, clarified that my bright yellow Peace Corps polo shirt was what was sending off chicken like vibes. Which made a lot of sense. And made me highly self conscious for wearing such an absurdly loud color. He then proceeded to sing the chicken song, "Los pollitos dicen pio-pio......." since there was no music in the van. It was embarrassing, because I don't take too kindly to being the butt of jokes.
At 10 am, I arrived to plan classes.
Moral of the story: There's no such thing as a free ride, if you're accounting for time and dignity.
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