Bethany P. - Ecuador - Fall 2009

In the six weeks I have been in Ecuador, riding the bus has been consistently the most culturally informative activity of my study abroad experience. Although I have no statistical evidence, I believe that every one of the approximately million and half inhabitants of Quito ride the bus every day. This is most apparent while waiting for the bus. I quickly learned that there are no lines in Ecuador, only crowds. The two opposing masses of people trying to enter or exit the bus push and squeeze past each other desperately hoping to reach their destination before the bus driver gets tired of waiting and closes the doors.
I ride the bus nearly everywhere I go in Quito. The university is located in a valley suburb of the city, and it takes me three buses and about an hour to get to school in the morning. The view of the mountains from the bus on a clear day is breathtaking. The view inside the bus is often equally remarkable. It is quite common to see vendedores selling anything from food to stickers to closet organizers on the buses. Their sales pitches are well practiced and almost musical. Even the bus drivers’ assistants use a distinctive rhythm and melody when they call out the destinations of their routes to the people on the street.
I also take the bus to my volunteer job that is part of the IPSL program. The organization I work for is called FENOCIN, and roughly translated it stand for a confederation of Ecuadorian organizations for farmers, indigenous people, and Afro-Ecuadorians. I love my job because, among other reasons, it is only place other than the bus that I see such a diverse group of people. FENOCIN works on a number of issues including leadership development, food sovereignty, agro-ecology, and any number of human rights issues. My own project is a campaign to end violence against women, something I have mercifully not witnessed on the bus.
This weekend I took a six-or-so-hour (another element of Ecuadorian culture that becomes apparent on the bus is the relaxed orientation toward time) bus ride to the beach. The buses are the cheapest, if not the fastest, way to travel around Ecuador. They go everywhere in the country, save the Galapagos Islands. Again, the view from the bus was astounding. In this single trip we saw everything from the volcanoes Pichincha and Cotopaxi near Quito to lush hills throughout the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The vendedores were out in full force on the buses, selling coconut juice in bags and rows of hamburgers out of a plastic tub. A container full of chicken, rice, and fried bananas proved too tempting, and many of us learned the hard way that it is better not to eat chicken from a bus.