Stranded at the drive-in [military checkpoint]

April 2013

It is hot.  Beyond hot.  I am sweating through my sheer tank top and just ripped my jean shorts on the floor of the bus.  Yes, the floor of the bus.  Why am I sitting on the floor?  Because the bus company sold 50 tickets for a four-hour ride on a bus that only has 40 seats.  Who gets to sit?  Not the white girl.  The middle-aged Guatemalan men are all staring at me like I have leprosy.  I am accustomed to men gawking at my light skin and hair, their jaws practically hitting the floor when they realize I speak Spanish, but this reaction is not something I have ever experienced before.  They had pushed me out of the line to get on the bus and are now giving me death stares.  In their eyes, I am too wealthy to be using the locals’ means of transportation.  I wish my skin was three shades darker, but at least I don’t have blue eyes.

There was a guy in a red shirt whose seat I had been holding onto for balance.  He looked to be about my age and had a few scars on his face.  He kept glancing at me, then hurriedly looking at his sneakers.  After about forty-five minutes, he stood up and gestured for me to take his seat.  I gestured to the elderly woman standing next to me and she gave me a grateful smile as she eased into the seat, wincing in pain as she sat.  The guy turned out to be from Honduras and was heading up north to see his daughter.  We spent the next hour chatting amicably, despite the glares from the men surrounding us.

My bad back began to hurt, which is how I found myself sitting on the floor near the bus driver.  We hit a speed bump a little too fast and I lurched forward, which is how I ripped my shorts on a loose screw on the floor.  Great… now I am the only white person, a woman by herself in a very macho society, sweating through my shirt, and my pink underwear is going to show when I stand up.  I take a sip of water and undo my money belt, worried I am going to sweat through my passport and ruin it.

The bus is slowing down, so I stand to get a better look.  There are armed guards everywhere.  My heart begins to race.  I ask my new Honduran friend what is going on, and he touches my arm to reassure me.  “It’s just a checkpoint,” he tells me in very fast Spanish, “they’re just going to search our luggage.”  A beefy man in a bulletproof vest boards the bus and tells us we have ten minutes at this stop and to leave everything on the bus.  I hug my backpack to my chest and try to brush past him, but he throws his arm in front of me.   I panic and unzip my backpack to retrieve my money belt, explaining to him that I need my passport and money.  “No,” he tells me, “I said leave everything.”  He pats his hip and I gulp, seeing his gun holster.

I exit the bus with nothing but my clothes, the ring on my finger, and a tissue in my pocket.  I look at the clock on the building and make the decision to run to the bathroom.  I am trying to stay hydrated, but being stuck standing on a bus is testing the limits of my tiny bladder.  I emerge from the bathroom and look at the clock- it has been roughly three minutes.  I round the corner just in time to see the bus roll forward.  I break into a dead sprint and pound on the walls of the bus as it speeds up.  I catch up to the door and pound on the windows.  The bus slows and lets me on and the driver shakes his head at me.  “They said ten minutes!” I pant.

My new friend hands me my backpack and I dig through it, half-expecting my money and passport to be missing.  Everything is still there.  “They were going to leave you, you know.  The bus driver asked if everybody was back on the bus and they voted to leave you here.”  I feel nauseous.  “I heard them whispering about the gringa and how they thought it was best if they just left you.  They told the bus driver that everyone was back.  When I saw you running, I told the bus driver to stop for you, that you were with me.”  I put my hand over his and thank him for saving my life.  Images flash in my mind of how I would have gotten to Guatemala City from the middle of nowhere with nothing except a ring and some cheap sandals.  I picture the straight mouths of the men with guns, the bulletproof vests, and the dark stares they had given me and feel sick thinking about what I would have had to do to ask for help.

I am tugged back to the present.  “You owe me, you know,” he is telling me.  “You should at least give me a few kisses for telling the bus driver to stop.”  We eventually settle on a few of my elastic hair ties, a kiss on the hand, and a hug.  Neither of us speak for the remainder of the journey.