On the Road Again

by Jim

The universe is filled with the unknowable. How did it form? Is time travel possible? What is dark matter? And, how many people fit in a guagua?

A guagua is a small bus. There are thousands of them in the Dominican Republic. They have names: 10B, 27C, 23 etc. These names are only important to the drivers. They are meaningless otherwise. They have routes but no schedule, a driver and a cobrador. The cobrador is a guy, a very serious guy, who stands in the door or hangs from the side. His job is to convince people along the route that his guagua is the one to take. He collects the fare. This is capitalism at its purest and there is a lot of competition. If you can convince someone else to get on, then you are going to get them on.  Here is how it works . A guagua has four seats across. That means 5 people sit there. And, when the thing is so full that those standing cannot move their arms, and when no one else can possible get on, then if the cobrodor can convince them, he will get people to stand on the running board on the side and hang on the windows. So, the answer to our question, how many people can fit in a guagua is, one more.

There is another form of transportation in the cities. It is not nearly as safe or comfortable as the guagua, although it is faster, the carro publico. All of these cars look like demolition derby veterans, and not the winners. They are all the size of a Nissan Sentra. We know exactly how many people fit in one of these, seven. The drivers are insane. I’ve been in countries where marked lanes meant nothing and where sidewalks were legitimate driving surfaces. This is different. These guys do what they want. Stop lights are meaningless.

Sunday Vickie and I and a couple of other Peace Corps folks were in Santa Domingo and decided to head home. We decided to take a carro publico to where we could catch a guagua. We walk up to an older guy standing with the door open and he tells us to get in. In the front seat is a 9 year old kid on the passenger side.  The four of us squeeze in the back, the man slams the front door and the kid pushes a pillow into the front seat, jumps over starts the engine and puts the car in gear. I want you to know that neutrinos may not move faster than light but it’s possible the gringos can. We exploded out of the car before it had moved a foot.

I will save the moto conchos for another post.

Not only are we not in Kansas anymore, this place isn’t like Fisherville either.