The Wrong Bus

I am desperatly trying to figure out the bus situation in Guará. I asked my director at my school and he said to take the little green bus. The other one’s go to Brasilia or somewhere else far away. I have mostly just been traveling from my school “Yes!” and my house. It’s about a 5 minute bus ride or a 30 minute walk. The bus is R$1.50 which is about $1.00. So I took the small bus the first day and it worked perfectly. It was a crazy bumpy ride, but it got me home and back the next day. So I have been avoiding the other busses and the little green bus has been working fine….sometimes it only costs R$1, instead of R$1.50…and I can’t really figure out the pattern, but whatever. So last night I was waiting at the bus stop and along came my little green bus. I got on, and it was only R$1, and it was packed. It was rush our so I wasn’t completely surprised, but I was standing packed into this bus. The aisle was jammed…there is no way that only one could get out, but I just hung on (a head above everyone else, so it wasn’t so bad). But then we took a turn…it felt like we were going into Guará I. Guará I and Guará II are neighboring cities. They are both circles and they come together at the feira and the metro station. Well I couldn’t really see out the window because I was standing and there were people all around me, but I was pretty sure we were in Guará I. My faithful bus just let me down. No big deal, I am sure that it just circles Guará I and then goes back to Guará II. Well, we keep picking up more and more people and no one is getting off, so this bus is really really crowded. Finally we got to a point where people began getting off and eventually I was able to get a seat in the last row. I wanted to seat mostly so that I could see out of the window and try to figure out where we were. I didn’t recognize anything, and it didn’t even look like Guará I. We are out in the country so where and I don’t even see a city around!! Well, I starting thinking to myself..what’s the worst thing that could happen? I might have to walk from here to get another bus that goes back, but in all reality, I am sure this bus will eventually take me back, and it’s still light out, so all it good. I’m not really in a hurry or anything. Then we turned down this dirt road, it was a much poorer area. All the houses were made out of corrugated metal and strap wood…this was the favela that we have heard about. Favela’s are little ‘tent cities’ that are built up by the hopeless and the poor. Most of them have a mafia type government and you don’t want to wonder in without an invitation. This particular area we have been told about and it was recommended to us that we do ministry there. Well, Kelly decided that we would wait for a direct invitation from the mafia boss. So here I am on a bus headed into the favela. People started getting off, and I was just praying that I wouldn’t be the last one on this bus…then the bus ticket collector got off. (Every bus has a bus driver and a money taker who sits at the front and makes sure that everyone pays. Everyone gets on at the front and off at the back. No exceptions and the ticket collector takes care of it. Well, apparently this ticket collector didn’t want to go into the favela either. And after he was off people just got on and off the back without paying for a thing. We drove around for a while through the dirt streets and muddy huts. Eventually we got to a pretty well built school with lots of children playing in the front. There was a huge pile of gravel that they were climbing on and running down. At this point there was only about 4 people on the bus with me and all of a sudden there was a loud bang or pop. Then another one. I though a gun went off, or the tire blew…nope, the children were throwing rocks at us…handfuls of gravel rocks! Just for fun. Somehow we got out of that area and the ticket collector got back on. As I was the only one still on the bus, he asked me where I was going and I explained that I was definitely on the wrong bus and that I wanted to go to Guara II. He told me to come sit up with him and that yes, we would be going by Guara II now. So we started chatting, but by this point I was tired and my Portuguese was suffering. I can usually communicate pretty well, but it does take a lot of concentration and I just couldn't do it. So we moved to Spanish, which is much easier for me. He is studying Spanish at Wizard, which is another Language school in Guara, (they are actually a pretty big chain all over Brasil, and competitors with Yes!). So we had a really funny converstation in Spanish and Portuguese with a little English here and there. We was trying to say a few things in English and then he asked to bus driver if he knew any English. The bus driver yelled back, "Good morning. How are you? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday..." Then other people on the bus chimed in. "Oh my God." and "How are you? I am fine." It was so funny. Well, in the end I arrived safely at my stop in Guara II, block 38 and said bye to all my fellow bus riders.
Next time I will ask where the bus is going before getting on.