To you, my beloved readers, this tale is simply "A Getting-To-School Adventure", since I never told you about the first one (it wasn't that interesting, really), but I like to direct my headlines at myself, since I assume that I'm my only audience.
This morning, I arrived at the bus stop around 6:20 AM, which was a little later than I usually aim for (and by 'usually', I mean the one day of school prior to this morning). This meant that I missed my fellow teacher (and math department head, coincidentally) who takes the same bus. No big deal - after several days of training and the first day of school, I've got the bus figured out.
So the first bus ambled up, looking rather full. I didn't quite catch which bus it was, so I walked towards it with the intention of peeking around at the front, where the route is generally listed. Upon making this several-meter trek, I encountered a man who I took for a bus employee - around here, there's the driver, and there's the guy who collects your money, and when the bus stops, he's usually hanging out the door to make sure everyone who wants to get on gets on before the driver takes off, which, by the way, doesn't usually happen, and more than once now I've entered/exited a moving bus, so anyway, this guy was hanging off the side as the bus approached, hence my assumption he was the money collector guy - and this guy surprised me by asking "(name of my school)?".
How did he know where I was going? Many buses pass by this bus stop, going to many destinations, and even the ones that take me the right way stop first at Barranquilla's most populous university, which is a much more popular stop on the route. Lots of people around here (including transportation personnel, as I discovered in my first getting-to-school adventure) don't even know what I'm talking about it when I tell them the school's name.
In any case, I got on the bus, since this guy seemed to know what he was talking about, even though I was pretty sure this bus wouldn't get me all the way to school. It was absolutely jam packed, to the point where I was the one hanging out the entrance as we drove away, which was pretty exhilarating. After driving for several minutes, the bus came to a stop in a weird place (which isn't uncommon - passengers just tell the driver when they want to stop). Apparently, my guide had requested the stop, and at this point he hopped off and motioned for me to hop off at the same time. I had no idea where we were, but once again, this guy knew his stuff, so I followed.
By the way, astute readers (and since, as previously mentioned, the readership of this blog most likely consists exclusively of the writership of this blog, it is a fair assumption that 100% of the readers are in fact astute) should now be realizing that my assumption that this guy was the money collector of the bus had just been proven false, since he had exited the bus and therefore was now unable to collect money from anyone on the bus. (also, speaking of money collection, my precarious position of only being about 40% inside the bus had seemingly exempted me from having to pay!)
So who was he? I didn't recognize him, and I had already had a week of training plus one day of regular school. I was almost positive he wasn't a staff member, but that positivity was now weakening with the newfound knowledge that he was not a bus dude.
Anyway, he led me over to a nearby corner, where there were a few people who looked like they were also waiting for buses (good sign!) as well as a few people who were just hanging out. One of the hangers was a coffee vendor - there are many portable coffee vendors around here, they carry around this rack of thermoses sort of thing - and shortly my guide was thrusting a thimble sized cup (another peculiarity that is common around here) of Caffe Tinto (black coffee with sugar, the default in Barranquilla) into my hands, free of charge (I didn't notice if he had paid for me, or if it was just on the house).
After a few minutes of socializing (him, not me - not many English speakers around this corner), he whisked me off to the other side of the street to catch our next bus. Also, our party had gained another member - a woman who, according to her garb, was a nurse. I didn't recognize her either, but I didn't think much of it, because there is also a hospital on the way to the school, so I just assumed that's where she was headed.
The first bus that came our way wasn't much of a bus at all - more of a van. But I've been on buses of varying sizes here, so once again this was something I didn't think much of - especially since, as I've now mentioned three times, my good friend seemed to know what he was doing. Upon hopping into the van and sitting down, though, I noticed something odd - the 4 passengers who had already been seated inside were children, all wearing uniforms from my school. This was a school van. (They don't do school buses around here, instead they have a fleet of these 10ish person vans.)
At this point, my surety that Mr. Busandcoffee wasn't a member of the staff was beginning to severely wane. (I was now also forced to assume that my new nurse friend was a school nurse, even though I had met the school nurse the previous week at training, and I thought there was only one.) And my incorrectness was confirmed when the van drove non-stop to the school, and upon arrival everyone dutifully filed out.
I guess I was just wrong - my transportation hero does work at the school. It was embarrassing that I didn't know him, though our lack of ability to communicate probably masked some of that. In any case, I won't be forgetting him any time soon. After getting out of the bus I thanked him, and began toward my classroom.
But then something weird happened - he turned around and headed the other way, toward the school gate. Was I right all along? Did he not work at the school? Did he just go to all that trouble to make sure I got to school okay??! (other questions abound: once again, how did he know where I wanted to go? How did he know that nurse?) Needless to say, I was mighty confused, as I watched my hero saunter off into the sunset. (it wasn't sunset, it was like 6:45AM)
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Fast-forward to 12PM. (Classes end at 12PM this week - because it's the first week of school, we're trying to ease the students into it, thus the short day.) Every day this week, after school ends, I have rehearsal with the newly formed teacher band. The band consists of the two music teachers on piano and bass, an English teacher on guitar, yours truly on drums, and the religion teacher on vocals. The purpose of these rehearsals is to prepare for mass on Friday, at which we will be performing several religious songs.
Setting up for rehearsals is somewhat luxurious - after years of playing in student groups in which the band sets everything up, and often has to transport the equipment great distances from the storage space to the rehearsal space, the teacher band has a whole maintenance crew at our disposal, who apparently have nothing else to do at 12:15 than haul equipment up one flight of stairs for us.
It was during this set-up process that something caught my eye. A face I recognized but couldn't place. Maybe just one of those faces - that reminds you of someone else, you know? But then the face smiled at me and waved, and that's when it hit me - there was my guy! He was wearing different clothes, which was why I hadn't immediately recognized him. It was like something out of a movie - except usually the guy in the movies who you recognize-but-can't-place-because-he's-now-wearing-different-clothes-and-particularly-maintenance-clothes is a bad guy who you figure out the identity of one knife-slash too late.
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As of the writing of this story, I have no reason to believe he's a bad guy, so the tale has a happy ending. And also a clears-up-so-much-confusion ending! I wouldn't recognize him, because the maintenance crew wasn't at training. Good on him for recognizing me in the early morning, since we had probably only seen each other around school a couple times and never spoken, but I guess I stand out a little more around here. But now it's him that stands out, not me - as a shining pillar of grace, kindness, and heroism.
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