March 14, 2006
The Greatest Day EVER
posted by Sharon
Some people have the ability to have a “normal” lifestyle, to carry on throughout a
complete day with their “normal” routines, and be pretty great with it all. But if
by some odd chance something out of the ordinary should happen, this “normal” person
might just not be “pretty great with it all” –This type of person should NOT hang
around me! Ha ha!
Recently, I started taking ballet classes in Cd. Victoria, a city about
45 minutes away. Now, normally my mom drives me; through the ejidos,
over the Sierra Madres, into the city, 3 days a week. But, because of
the crazy amounts of gas and time it takes up, we decided to mix this
normality up a little bit.
A few weeks ago, my sister Marla, Mackenzi Price, and I decided to be
brave and go to Victoria and come back again using only busses, taxis,
no phones, and our oh-so-perfect-Spanish skills. Wonderful, yeah? So
onto the bus the three white girls went.
The ride from Jaumave was uneventful, but when we got to Victoria and it
was time to hail a taxi….it went downhill from there. We walked outside
the bus station and a man asked us if we needed a taxi so, we all
crammed in the back seat, which was only for two people, and tried to
explain the address. Well, that wasn’t working out too well, so I just
told him the name of the street and he went in a round-about way to get
there. In any case, we made it to the school after about 5 minutes. (It
is only a 1 minute drive from the bus station) Normally, the charge for
the trip would be about 20 pesos. We were charged 40! The driver told us that
since his brother worked the next shift, he would have him come and pick us up
at 8:15 and that there was no need to call.
After my class, we waited outside ….until 9:00! And still, no brother!
So, we called another taxi. This driver took us straight to the bus
station and charged us 50 pesos! We were too tired and not fluent enough
to argue with him so we just gave him the money and left.
By the time we made it to the bus station the earlier busses had all
left, so we had to wait for the 9:45 bus, which actually comes at 10:00.
While waiting for the bus, we were all starving so we bought some
delicious looking nachos. I say looking for a reason. When the bus came
we hopped on, happy that our troubles were over, but, no, no, this was
not the end. During the ride home the man who I sat by snored, the
whole, the entire, and the complete way to Jaumave. Ha ha! Anyway, by
the time we drove up, it was about 11:15 P.M. and we were very tired.
We started walking to my house from the bus station (nobody was there to
pick us up) and as we were walking, some acquaintances of ours drove up
behind us and asked if we wanted a ride. How could we refuse? We looked
in the back of their car and their two little girls were sleeping so we
said no, but they woke them up anyways and the 5 of us were all packed
in.
At 11:30 we FINALLY arrived at home all safe and sound. From taking this
lovely trip, we concluded that we are white, we do not speak Spanish,
busses and taxis are just not for us, and that we do not lead the
“normal” lifestyle. The next day we got a good laugh from it all and
thought it would make for a GREAT blog entry!