El Collectivo

Since I've been here I've been feeling a little bit guilty about my career path, or lack thereof, and especially for not using my Anthropology degree, or the Italian one for that matter. In my last year of University I took really great classes and even considered applying to grad school for anthropology. My favorite project was my final exam; it was a semester long ethnographic study and I did mine on my fellow bus riders without their knowledge.

I was living in Providence but I went to school 40 minutes to the south in Kingston. I started taking the bus because I was having to fill up my tank every five days and if there's anything I detest more than driving it's having to pay through the nose for gas. However, if I could afford it I'd pay for someone to drive me everywhere I needed to go for the rest of my life... like a bus driver, but more individualized.

The bus was actually a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be, there were all sorts of characters on it. All the lunch ladies from the cafeteria seemed to live in Providence and were regular chatty Kathys on the bus in the early mornings, then in the afternoons it was a lot of stoic looking grounds keepers. And then there were just overall creepos. For instance, one time I was absent mindedly staring at this guy who was fully decked out in gold chains and the light was glistening off of him in a really hypnotic way, I just couldn't help myself. When he got off the bus my eyes continued to follow him and before he had even made it all the way up to the front an older man sitting across from me started saying in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear: "Yeah gurrrrrrl! You want that piece don't ya? I see you, staring him up and down like that, white girl wants that n*gger!" And he kept going on in this manner until he got off the bus. He scared me off for a couple of weeks but then I started taking the express out of necessity and luckily I never ran into him again.

I bring this up because I've found myself having to take the bus regularly again in my life. The office where I teach English is on the outskirts of the city so I take bus 76 for a half hour out there and then back again. For some reason they call the bus el colletivo (the collective) here and the anthropologist in my thinks it has something to do with their rich history of political and civil upheavals. They all pay for the buses and they all stand in the buses together, it's a collective that's only possible because they've brought about the necessity for it. I don't know, something like that.

I was feeling really miffed about having to sit on a bus with a bunch of other grumpy, sweaty people, all of us vying for open seats on the overcrowded colletivo. But then something happened yesterday that made me love the colletivo, a real verbal brawl went down and I understood almost all of it.

It all started with the woman who got on the bus before me, she put 1.20 into the coin machine to pay for her fare and the ticket didn't come out. She flicked the mouth of the machine for about 20 seconds, muttering 'que? que? que? que?' until the bus driver (and I'm paraphrasing) said "What's the problem?"

"The ticket isn't coming out."

"How much did you put in?"

"1.20"

"The fare's 1.25"

"What the HELL?! It's always been 1.20! Are you out of your mind? You're trying to rob me, why don't you just take my wallet and beat me up?!"

"Lady, I don't make the rules. The fare went up, it's not my fault."

"You people, my God, you're all thieves."

But she put the extra 5 centavos in and got her ticket and went and sat down. I paid my fare and sat down in front of her and was pleased to note that she was still fuming.

At the next stop people got on and we moved forward to wait at a red light. Then this little old lady tapped on the door, obviously wanting to get on, and being a stickler for rules the bus driver waggled his index finger 'no' at her, 'only at designated stops, no matter how much trouble you have walking."

As we started moving through the green light a woman in front of me with a baby on her lap started addressing the bus driver as 'Muchacho' in a highly aggressive tone. I couldn't really understand what she was saying because the woman behind me was saying very quietly 'how rude' and then louder 'how rude' and louder still 'how rude' until finally the bus driver broke off from his argument with the mother to turn around 120 degrees in his seat and start yelling at her too! And then all chaos ensued.

Both women were yapping at him and he was yelling at them and you could tell he was getting angrier and angrier by the second because his foot kept getting heavier against the gas pedal and we were going dangerously fast through the city, even by Argentine standards. I was basically caught in the middle of this argument between the driver and the women sitting both in front and behind me so I looked to the other passengers for some sort of reference and was relieved to see that they were all gripping the sides of their seats as well.

The mother picked up her baby and stood next to the bus driver because her stop was coming up but this didn't slow down her tirade. With one arm holding the baby and the other being used to gesticulate obscenities at him I marvelled at how she balanced herself as we bumped along and swerved through traffic. It could only have been pure rage that kept her standing.

Anyway, she finally got off and this left only the lady behind me who hadn't let up for one second. He was a cretin, an idiot, a peasant, badly educated, all these words I understood so I know for sure she was saying them. He may have been all those things but he was also a maniac because we really were driving far too fast for a bus in the city. At a red light we actually caught up to another bus 76 that was in front of us on the same route and the lady behind me took this opportunity to make her grand exit. She stood up, spat on the ground and demanded that he let her off the bus, which he was only too happy to do, in the middle of the road. She got off, still yelling obscenities at him, spat on the ground again, marched over to the bus 76 that we were now pulled up along next to and continued to hurl insults at him through the open windows.

My bus driver opened the doors again and called out to the other driver, "She's your problem now! Pass me that newspaper." To which the other driver gave a crooked smile and threw his paper through the window and into the bus.

I can only hope that the rest of my bus rides be half as entertaining as this because I have now been inspired to start an entirely new ethnography.