Oh! This is why they call it a Chicken bus.

The actual finding of a bus that would bring my person to Xela well before the night felt like a success. Jessica is very much missed. But the tranquility that followed our parting constituted one of the best 24 hours of my life.

While waiting on the highway with twenty plus others, easy conversation was made with locals. All friendly and all eager to let me know that they knew where Kansas and Kansas City was. It was much appreciated and still pathetic that my educated self could not reciprocrate. A funeral procession made its way across the road. Women were crying and singing and the casket that was being carried was beautiful. Frankly, more beautiful than any of the pyramids seen in Tikal. Those pyramids are profound, bu not beautiful.

Met a Guatemalan dentist named Jonathan who had worked a few years in Omaha, Nebraska and Harper, Kansas as a farm hand.

Within the last hour and a half, my body was the third on the left seat with one butt cheek out, the other half of me being supported by another fellow in the same spot on the right seat. People came in and out, but there was always only room for body to body and always one to four people forced to stand up. Chicken buses are also characterized by the two people who run the show, the driver and the guy who collects the money, hops around on the outside of the bus packing luggage on the roof and helping the older and crippled passangers on board through the back exit door. This one was, just as the trip to San Pedro a very boyish looking man--more boyish looking than myself. At one point the old man next to me refused to pay, but what looked like insolence then revealed itself as the informal rate for the disabled. The boy moved on to collect from the other new passengers. The old man smiled at me in a semi demented tone: ¨ya!¨

¨huh,¨ my spanish accent asked. Then, grinning big, he raised his shrunken right arm with a very crippled, twisted and almost doll like hand with fingers ten times more bent then those received from my dad over the years of plumbing and softball.

¨Ya¨, he defiantly repeated letting out a gust of the morning breath, then turning his attention towards the alluded to diety-chicken bus celing, almost laughing. ¨Ya!¨ Ya means already.

¨Ya ha pagado?¨ So you´ve already paid, was my response as the subtle increase of bliss fixed with eyes on this happy fellow who was obviously un-suffering something wonderful.

People were all scrunched together in silence. It´s never different: the closer bodies of strangers find themselves together, the more likely they remove themselves from opening their mouths.
A wonderful song led by a strong flamenco styled guitar began to play about a forbidden romance. A lover is telling his beloved that he could lie about everything in the past, change his name and lie about everything he is, but he could not forget the secret he shared with his beloved. The blood was flowing so well across my head. The right pre frontal cortex as well as the left was fairly flexed. During the whole ride the high speed of the bus and the bumps of the road not that much worse than the state of Missouri, were felt.

In the Xela bus station, the filthiest place ever inhabited in my 31 years, the attempt was made to get a hold of the El Nahual (my school) preferred taxi driver, Carlos D´Leon. After wasting a whole quetzal (two phone calls), my attention was turned to the taxis that were already there. Two of them, both appearently competing for my attention. It is sight worth considering for a very long time. The first guy gave me a price while the younger looking second driver was waving his arms at me from behind him. When my light footed body marched up one foot to the second driver, who had a much safer looking car, he indicated the same price. He then gestured for me to go to the car with the other guy.

Once at the home of my host family, Alejandra Reyes and Estuardo Rivas, there was only the desire to explore the roof top with the amazing view and take a cold shower.

First four songs in order that popped into the head (ad hoch, as certain persons would say) while unpacking¨:

¨Who Are You¨ by Tom Waites
¨Janet Jangle¨ by High Llamas
¨13 Blues for 13 Moons¨ by Silver Mt. Zion
¨She Says Good Morning¨ by The Pretty Things

Was reminded that something is always burning in in the air this country. It is killing the lungs more quickly. But it smells so great. My memory has only the wonderful bonfires and barbecues with Aunt Patty and uncle Mike at single digit years of age and the late October bonfires of ¨the poor farm¨of my paternal grandparents to compare. But there are combinations of smells here that will never be experienced En Los Estados Unidos.