El Colectivo

This entry is dedicated to my new acquaintance: the bus.
In the Unites States, the quality and commonality of public transportation usually depends on the part of the country in which you live. Urban areas utilize it more than the suburbs and rural areas. This, I am sure, is not news to anyone, but I preface this way to let you know that I am not from a part of the country that utilizes public transportation as its primary mode. Yes, there is a functioning bus system, but more people/families own and drive a car. Here in Buenos Aires--megacity that it is--the bus is the number one form of transportation. There is a subway system, too, but the bus reaches a much broader spectrum of the map. They number from 1-464, and can take you almost anywhere in the city of BA. It's an intricate web, that even an experienced Argentine can find hard to navigate [ok I haven't exactly met anyone who professes to be such, but for the sake of argument, let's just nod and continue.]

So, as I said, I do not come from a big city, and I have never relied on the bus for transportation. Therefore, you must believe me when I say that these past few days have been quite an experience. I have transitioned from driving everywhere to relying 100% on a bus system that I am unfamiliar with. Not only is riding the bus an adjustment, but I also have to communicate where I want to go in Spanish*. Several times within the past few days, I have told the driver the name of the streets I wish to arrive at, and he looks at me with confusion and leans in to hear me repeat my mispronunciation of "Nogoyá." After a few moments of mumbled instructions, he signals me to keep the line moving towards the back of the bus. I get to one of the hand rails and wait for Lindsay to ask what he had been telling me, but she hadn't understood either. After we ride for several blocks, we start to second guess if we are headed in the right direction. We (as in Lindsay--spokeswoman of this duo) ask fellow passengers if they know where Nogoyá is, and thankfully they do. They kindly let us know that it is in the opposite direction. We had hopped the right number bus, but instead of 114A, it should have been 114B. Or we had missed our stop completely by a couple of miles. Or we should have boarded this same bus on opposite side of the street, which would take us south instead of north. You might be curious as to how we could manage to accomplish all of this within a matter of days, but let me assure you, each of those scenarios has occurred--and some more than once.

But we are improving. Really. Today it only took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to a location which yesterday had taken us three hours. We learned how to reload our bus/subway card, which had started to empty all the more rapidly the more we paid for routes we hadn't intended to take. We have walked a lot, which is my favorite part of the bus ride--getting off. We have become more willing to ask people for directions, on and off the bus. When lost on the ground, a police officer is always a good go-to. When in doubt, we press the parar button to disembark and jump off as quickly as possible to figure out if we made a wrong turn. Sometimes we just get anxious and jump off without double checking with our guia [our bus route booklet] or a passenger/driver. Thankfully, there has always been a way to walk to where we need to be--whether that's our final destination or another bus stop--and neither of us mind walking. It has been an exhausting past few days, but we have learned so much. The people here are great. Not only is the missionary family^ always on-call if we're lost and need assistance, but they also let us collapse on their living room floor when we finally arrive at their house a few hours past our original ETA. The Argentines that we have interacted with have also been friendly and don't seem to mind that we don't exactly know what we are doing. Many have had more patience with us than I would have deemed kind. The people we meet and have relationships with make riding the bus all the more enjoyable (if that is even an adjective I can attribute to the bus).

Next we master the subway.

 *We have been told several times that Argentine's do not speak Spanish, but Castellano. It is the same thing with a few notable exceptions. Pronunciation is one of them. If you are familiar with the Spanish language, you know that the "y" makes the <ee> sound and "ll" make the <y> sound, but in Castellano, the two are pronounced as "sh" (with a bit of a buzz of the tongue). Also some of the words are different, but that might be more due to the fact that each Latin American country has slightly different vocabulary. Overall it's the same,  but some words change. For example, in most Spanish speaking countries, "strawberry" is "fresa," but here it is called "frutilla." So we are not only brushing up on our Spanish, but also learning the Castellano twist. 

 ^The missionary families here are fabulous. They make this place feel more like home.