The people on the bus go up and down

I take the bus to and from Spanish class every day. The trip takes about 30 mins in each direction. That's a full hour of intense, presonal Nucaraguense, a kind of daily informal orientation to Managuan life. And so, I bring you the Managuan bus system as I know and love it:

The bus lines are run by private entities, usually co-operatives, that own and maintain the buses. The fares are regulated by the government, but that's about it. Buses are generally old US school buses, and some are old European or Russian buses.

The companies paint the buses in their own color themes, so it sort of feels like you're joining a team by riding it (maybe that's just me). The red and white buses are lines 113 and 114. I don't know if this is a rule, or just a coincidence. I take the 114 almost every time I go to class. I imagine myself on the red and white team. Maybe our mascot could be the candy cane or a barber poll. More likely, however, it is Jesus in a red and white jeresy. That's right, Jesus. Pictures of Jesus can be found on any given wall of any given bus. If you didn't know who or what Jesus was, you might think that "Jesus" meant "bus" based solely on how many times it appears on Managua's public transportation system. Outside of Jesus's picture and name, the interior bus walls are usually covered in sayings and graffiti. Mostly, they address love, god, pain, fear, and otherwise abstract or intangible concepts. They are stenciled to the wall in the team colors. I imagine them as my mantras, words with meaning beyond meaning, words that will carry me through the intense populous that pours in and out of the mechanical doors.

Riding the bus feels more like a daily carnival than a commute. Often, as I walk up to the bus stop the 114 is waiting for me with an announcer outside the door yelling something like "114, 114! There's room for everyone! Come on! Ride the 114!" When I walk up, he usually says some variation of "Gringita, come ride my bus." This is one of the more polite phrases that Nicaraguan men yell at me, luckily I don't usually understand them.

Then I hop on and pay my 2.50 (~15 cents) and find a seat. Often there are no seats, in which case I hold onto one of the bars that has been welded to the ceiling and coated with colorful plastic tape. The Managuan bus system's answer to nylon upholstery is plastic tape. When the bus takes off it weaves in and out of traffic honking its horn wildly at passers bye. If another bus of the same color (team) passes it, the drivers cheer at one another and honk their horns with fury. At each stop the bodies shuffle around one another to squeeze on or off. Usually, a vendor will hop on selling chicklets, bags of water, carmel peanut bars, or some other sweet snack for a cord or two. He will push his way down the isle, stepping on feet, pressing his candies against the backs and heads and arms of people. He will ask me three or four times if I want a candy. Just in case, he tries again in broken English. I am pleased by his persistence, his generosity of time and manner. I feel a little bad that I will not be buying candy.

The bus offers me a little journey into the pulse of a populous I can't communicate with (yet). It presses me against strangers, jostles my belongings, makes me a little worried about whether I will ever get off. It lets me touch and smell and hear the normalcies of Managuan life. Each day I feel a little more like I might become one of those normalcies--the little gringa with a plastic bag who rides from Las Piedrecitas to the FNI and back again . I imagine myself as part of other people's commutes, less of a spectacle.