Pure Bliss!

I finally had the opportunity to go downtown San Salvador to El Centro. My new friend/fellow science teacher offered to take me on the city bus for a downtown excursion to celebrate the starting of the new school year. Different people love different things. To me, riding the city bus with everyday Salvadorans, through normal streets into the downtown market area was pure bliss! I absolutely LOVED every second of it!!!

I gave the driver $.20, and I boarded and moving toward the middle where I stretched to reach the top bar. After 3 people had squeezed passed me moving toward the back, I realized that Salvadoran bus etiquette was to move as far to the back as possible so that as others boarded, they could enter more easily. Noted, I shifted down along the bar a few rows. Knowing that the buses are touted as “dangerous”, I made sure I was aware of my surroundings by taking an inventory of the people surrounding me: directly to my right a 40-year old woman in a maid’s uniform, sitting directly in the seat in front of me is a sleeping 50-year old woman and a woman with her greying hair in a braided ponytail with a maid’s uniform to match the one beside me. Two middle school-aged girls in uniforms that have an International School emblem are to my back and a man in a business suit is to my left. Hmmm…not to say that any of these people couldn’t have robbed me blind (of the $10 I had in my pocket), but I wasn’t feeling my safety overly threatened. In fact, as I did a once-over of the bus clientele, it was composed primarily of working class people coming home after an honest day’s work.

After having deemed my immediate surroundings safe, I proceeded to face out the side windows, and watch as I left my pristine, gated bubble of San Salvador and entered the less polished parts of the city. We passed a man washing the windshields of stopped cars, apron -clad women selling fruit to backed up traffic, and roundabouts being renovated into little concrete parks. There are crowded 4-story apartment buildings where I can see people standing outside on the porches sharing the days’ happenings across the railings and women making pupusas on every corner.

When we arrived at our destination, which happened to be essentially the end of the route, we disembarked and wandered into the beauty that is the center of the city. I finally felt like I was truly in El Salvador and I LOVED it! There were people selling fruits and vegetables from stands that were crowded in along the side of the road. People were selling random plastic piggy banks (probably made in China) along the side of the road. We stopped at my friend’s regular place to have a drink and were greeted with blaring music the great 90’s song “I Swear” (its only redeeming quality was that it was the Spanish version). We continued our stroll by the National Cathedral, National Theater, by the fruit market and the vegetable market, and along a few more various streets and through a random park where many people were hanging out appreciating Friday evening before we stopped at a small pupuseria. We took the open table and were quickly given our desired pupusas. While waiting for them to cool, we realized why the table directly next to the griddle was open, it was HOT! (Thankfully, I can withstand temperatures way beyond normal human comfort, so I wasn’t bothered.) After the pupusas arrived at a consumable temperature, they ended up being the best I’ve eaten in El Salvador, and we only paid $1 for all 4.

By the time we finished, it had become dark, so we boarded the much emptier bus back into our sheltered world of the complejo. Thankful that I had gotten a glimpse of the more middle-class Salvadoran existence, I began to reflect. While I respect and consider the numerous warnings that have been given me from Americans and Salvadorans alike, I also wonder how many people who share these cautions have actually ridden a city bus before? The second thought that crosses my mind is how many handily use the word “unsafe” in place of “uncomfortable, inconvenient, and distasteful”. While I don’t doubt that senseless acts of violence have occurred on the busses and downtown, I truly believe that senseless acts of violence can and do occur everywhere. I’m not about to go hang out in gang-ridden neighborhoods, but I’m also not ready to stay in areas where I only see guards and maids on the streets. Tonight gave me a taste of what is available in the city. It was delightful, and I can’t wait to discover more! :)