I see the strangest things every day coming to and from work. I work in a very poor part of the city, so I generally have the feeling that I have arrived in the Wild West...it seems like anything goes here. Cars seem to completely disregard any laws and are driving every which-way. There are tuc-tucs bringing people here and there, people pushing wooden carts full of cabbage (today), indigenous ladies with enormous loads on their heads and this week the Guatemalan military patrolling the streets with nasty-looking automatic weapons. We were stopped one afternoon and they went all through our van and even matched our serial numbers on the motor and registration... it was a bit intimidating.
The most disturbing thing I saw this week was a poor elderly woman's body laying covered in newspaper on the side of the road. There were several plastic cones keeping cars away and a few police officers standing guard. She had most likely stepped off the curb to cross and was hit. In Guatemala, a death must be verified by a Judge, and sometimes takes hours. I hurt deeply for her family, probably yet to know. Or would they even be able to tell who whe was, if she had no identification? It was not a good start to my day.
This afternoon I saw an old Datsun pickup..very small pickup, headed up the highway. The bed of the pickup was surrounded by a metal frame and in the bed was somewhere around 40 men. It looked like the truck was going to tip over any moment! You would think that this would be a strange site, however it isn´t. Everyday I see people riding in pickup beds...women, children, groups... so scary!
I love the Guatemala ´chicken´buses. They are all over the country...older but beautiful american school buses...decorated elaborately.
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