Bus Ride to Remember

We went back out to the rural community on the bus today with the students. I will attempt to describe the experience. The bus seats 19 even though there are 21 students in the class + Kevin and me = 23. We got on the bus and quickly discoverd that the seats were made for the same folks who wear size small clothing. Kevin and I could barely fit in our seat which was behind the driver. The driver looked about 19 years old, but smiled a lot while everyone loaded onto the bus. OK, so far so good.

He turned on the bus and we wisked into oncoming traffic without a blink. Get this scene...the windows are open and within seconds, the driver flicked on the CD player which was semi-hanging out of the dash. With the wind blowing and the CD blaring the sound track from Slumdog Millionaire, the students were dancing in their seats.

As we left the city traffic, we went through a toll onto the highway, then turned sharply onto a rural road. The road had one lane paved and whatever got there first, got to drive on the paved portion. Our young driver played chicken way too many times for my comfort level with oncoming huge Mack gravel trucks. He was driving about 50 MPH and texting on his cell phone, while we watched the gravel trucks approach at the same speed and determination. At the last second, he would look up from texting and swerve off to the angled, soft shoulder to let the trucker pass. He was having great fun and singing along to the music. Dust filled the school bus and we gripped the back of the seat in front of us - no seatbelts on this bus. Instead of fear, I settled into nervous gasps and tried to think how I would describe the experience on this blog. Kevin stared out the window. I was grateful to know that our passports were tucked into my purse and the strap was double-wrapped around my wrist, so someone would be able to identify the bodies that were thrown out of the open bus window. All this time, the CD continued. I think that I could also sing along to the Slumdog theme song by this time. The students were having a great time of singing and seat dancing. It took just over an hour to arrive and it took only about 15 minutes to get out of the city, so you get an idea how long we were on the one lane paced road.

I have added a few photos of the countryside. It looks amazing like the Colorado Rockies in the southern part of Colorado. I'm sure that my mom will agree.

There are also a few photos that I took from the bus window to show how the outskirts of Pune is filled with modern buildings and construction.

In the next blog, I will talk about walking around the 3-street neighborhood in the village.