Its the future

I think the adverage student stays with a family for a maximum of 2 weeks before getting bored of learning Spanish and moving on. However, since my entire stay is several months which I have paid for upfront, my family have decided to invest in a few luxuries.

I arrived back on Sunday from Panajachel and a brand new colour TV has appeared in the kitchen taking pride of place on the work surface.
Life continues in much the same way as before, a few small adjustments are made to the seating plan around the table for meal times so that we can all watch the news at breakfast.

So this mornings news, Guatemala city is conducting a small experiment and has bought itself 5 bendy buses. Now picture for a moment San Pedro which is 4 hours from the city, the roads are dusty, the buses are big and loud and transport the people from the smaller rural towns in the mountains to the bigger towns around the lake. From 5am they chug along beeping loudly to indicate their arrival. Then as they pull up child workers waist no time as they spring down from the roof tossing down crates of chickens while other kids post themselves though the glassless windows to make a few Quetzal saving seats for the adults. Everyone has their job to done and its done quickly and chaotically until the bus is packed to absolute bursting including any amount of animals, people and furniture on its roof. Once its ready it pulls away beeping madly as more people cling on to the back for dear life therefore advoiding payment.



So back to the bendy bus, its one of those news items where they have filmed a little trailor before hand which goes somthing like this. The big green bendy bus pulls up into shot and a long and orderly que of locals are waiting. The doors open automatically and the people walk in slowly one by one as the news reporter explains how this amazing new futuristic bus will work. Then when all the people are sat down safely she waves to the driver and it gently pulls away through the shot. We cut to a wide shot of the bus driving past in all its glory. At this point the father of my family Antonio says to the mother who is sat quietly sowing in the corner "Mira, mira el nuevo autobus' she looks up unimpressed then smiles at me raising her eyebrows. He looks back at the other student and myself with the same expression and says ' Mmm i dont think it will catch on....do you!".
We fell on the floor laughing and so did he completely oblivious that there are actually more than 5 buses in existance eleswhere!!!!



Yet another technological breakthrough, the hand powered big wheel, we're streets ahead in San Pedro!!!