Lead Me Where

I’ve told you before about the time I almost drove away into the sunset by myself in a dilapidated van in central Mexico. It’s a good story, an exciting one, and it started right outside the bus station in my Mexican home city.

There’s another adventure, occurring more than a year before my solo driving bus station shenanigans. This adventure occurring on the way to the very bus station that appears to have caused so much drama in my Mexican life.

In August 2009, my brother, father, and I attended a conference in Mexico City. This scholarly event was a sort of “kick-off” for the individuals who, like my father, had received Fulbright scholarships to study and work in universities all across Mexico.

Father, myself, and Stevy at a Fulbright formal reception

We dressed up, attended receptions and conference meetings, explored Mexico City and the surrounding area, and got our first taste (rather more of a gulp, if you ask me) of life in Mexico. It occurs to me right now that one of the joys of writing is remembering, and I have just remembered that I was plagued at the time with two sprained rib muscles and the remains of a light case of pneumonia. Clearly, I survived both the conference and accompanying tourism without any lasting effect on my health and wellbeing.

Stevy climbed Teotihuacan. I remained at the bottom and puffed on a pneumonia-drug-filled inhaler.

The conference complete, my father, brother and I took a taxi through the crazy, vibrant, gloriously varied streets of Mexico City to the bus station. My father purchased tickets and we boarded a bus to the city that we would call home for the next nine months, and for long after that.

The bus was a rather luxurious affair with wide seats, TVs located intermittently down the aisle, and a bathroom in the back. Stevy and I sat next to each other, and our father sat in front of us. We were tired from an intense conference experience and settled into the ride listening to our iPods, sleeping (ahem, Dad), and watching the Mexican country roll by the huge windows that spanned both sides of the bus.

I was dozing comfortably between sleep and window watching, my headphones tucked into my pocket for the moment, when a sound like a gunshot went off and several people towards the back of the bus screamed. My heart pounding, I whipped around in my seat, only to see our middle-aged bus-mates huddled low in their seats, ducking salt and pepper heads below the window. Turning back around, I followed their example and sunk low in my seat, dragging my brother down, as well.

Moments passed and my heart pounded fast and hard. My Spanish was frustratingly limited, but somehow we came to understand that the sound was caused not by a gun, as many had suspected, but rather a rock striking one of the vast windows. The window had shattered, cracking into thousands of tiny pieces.

Still more than an hour from our destination, the bus driver had to stop, but we found ourselves on one of central Mexico’s many two-lane, two-way highways; cars zipping past at high-speed in the opposite direction on one side, and a steep mountain descent on the other side.

Finally, after what seemed like decades, the bus driver pulled off the highway and several of the men on the vehicle descended to assess the situation. The window, while spiderwebbed with cracks, was still mostly help together, but threatened to fall at any moment. The men removed the shattered window from its frame, covering the resulting gaping hole with the window curtains and some tape.

There was not much more that could be done, and everyone trooped back onto the bus to complete our journey. Dad, Stevy and I packed together in two seats, affording the gentleman who had been sitting by the broken window and clean, safe seat. And so it was that we rolled into the city that I’ve come to adore as my second home wedged three bodies where two should go, the wind whipping loudly through a broken window pane, and hearts still racing just a little from the excitement of it all.

Nighttime view of our mexican home.

~Natalia