I often walk home from school (and yes, I'm still living 14 blocks from the school), but at times I'll catch the bus, depending on how much I'm taking home, when the bus comes by, etc. If the bus doesn't come soon after I walk out of the school, I usually can walk home and be only a few blocks from the house before seeing the bus, so it doesn't really get me home much faster, which means the bus takes about 15-20 minutes to drive from the school to my house, mostly because traffic doesn't move all that fast on the streets here (unless you're in a taxi after 9pm and then you fly!) and because the bus stops A LOT to drop off and pick up people. We have bus stops, but the bus will also pick you up and drop you off apart from the official stops, so there's a lot of stopping and starting.
So Friday I needed to bring home about the equivalent of a ream of paper along with my computer. We're missing a teacher this week, so I had extra classes and extra papers to grade with less time to do it in, which means that I watched movies and graded most of yesterday! I left about 5:15 or so, thinking to get home at 5:30, eat something and start grading some papers. There were some high schoolers hanging out on the corner, after getting out of tutoring, and they were talking about a Pregón, the same type of parade where I dressed up as Shuar last year, but I didn't see anyone else hanging around the corner and ALL of the parades start out by the school, so I didn't think anything of it. The bus came by within a couple minutes so I got on and sat down. We started down the road and then, at the most annoying intersection in town, instead of going straight like normal, we turned left. I looked to the right and there were police blocking the road, so no one could turn right and at the next block over had a ton of people. I figured it was from the protest that I'd seen earlier that day, the taxi driver that took me back to school after lunch said that they were protesting for something to do with medicine, he didn't know and didn't have too high of an opinion of them, which I've found is pretty common. Anyway, I just figured that it was the same protest and that they hadn't disbanded yet, which seemed a little odd to me, but not too much so. So the bus went one block to the west from our normal route, but then came to the end of that road and we had to go back to the main road, but there again it was blocked from going the normal route (the school's on Amazonas St and I live on Soasti St, one block to the east, with the bus route following Amazonas for a few blocks and then turning onto Soasti, but Soasti was all blocked) and Amazonas was blocked because they tearing up all the streets bit by bit to lay down new pipes for the city's water/sewer system and the street we were on, to the west of Amazonas ended at the bus station, so there was no way for us to continue. So, the bus turned onto Amazonas heading back to the school and I started to get a little worried, but then the bus turned east, to the road on the other side of Soasti, which gave me hope. Macas has 3 streets that go the entire length of Macas: Amazonas, Soasti and 24 de Mayo. Amazonas and Soasti were blocked, but we were going to try 24 de Mayo. However, we could only get as far as the main Catholic church, before it too was blocked!! So the bus, again, turns back to the school and I asked the drivers if they weren't going to be able to get closer and they said that there was no way to continue on this side of the airport runway, but they would go down the other side of the runway. So we go back by school, which is at one end of the runway (my house is about halfway-3/4 down the runway on the other end). So the bus goes flying down the road with just one other passenger who gets off at the end of the runway, but the bus continues, without turning to go to the other side. I ask the drivers if they would be able to get to La Loma (my neighborhood) and they said that the would on the other side of the loop, so I hung out on the bus. We got to the end of the route, by the soccer stadium/track, leftover from the Ecuadorian version of the Olympics (province against province) and just waited. I began to wonder when, if EVER I was going to get home and debating the benefit of getting off and finding a taxi, since I REALLY didn't want to walk with all that paper in my backpack! Finally, though, the bus drivers got back on and started the bus up and headed down the road. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the bus headed down the east side of the runway, instead of the west (I live on the east)! There was hope!! :) At about 6:15 or so, I got off the bus, at my corner, ready to eat and rest. :) Not my normal trip home from school, but definitely interesting. :)
It was nice to be able to see the country around here, instead of the usual cityscape. The school's on the edge of town and I live on the edge of town, but between here and there, is all city, with a couple of empty lots where corn or bananas are grown, but not too much country, it's all houses, cement, cobblestones and telephone wires. But the other side of the runway isn't developed like this side, it's the poor, newly settled area, so it's mostly wooden houses on large plots of land, with lots of ferns and tall grasses and trees. So pretty!! Even though I wanted to get home, I really did need that time in the country. I don't get enough of that here, although, wherever I go i see almost completely unsettled mountains, so that does help. :) Ahh, the capabilities of the country to relax me! :)
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