Chicken Bus

Supposedly the old retired American school buses that they use for public transportation are known as ‘chicken buses’ because of the large amount of live poultry that are carried by its passengers (not very common anymore). We posit that it has more to do with the way they pass other vehicles though. The source of endless discomfort, these vehicles nevertheless have faithfully borne us in between almost all of our destinations. In Nicaragua we were always busy admiring their swank interiors and in Guatemala it is the glitzy sheet metal they put on the outside. No matter where we were though, there were always great stickered slogans about. Here are our favorites, with some loose translations.

‘No pida velocidad, pida seguridad’ (don’t pray for speed, pray for safety)
We’ve never seen anyone ask these gods of Guatemala for anything but a traveller told us he asked if the brakes were good once. His response: ‘Brakes are for cowards. Get on the bus.’

‘Niños de 7 años pagan su pasaje’ (kids over 7 have to pay)
The unspoken rule here is that kids under 7 sit on their parents even if you have a single mom with three or more children. She may also take advantage of this free time to breastfeed.

‘si dios conmigo quien contra mi’ (if god is with me, none are against me)
There are any number of god/jesus slogans. We like this one best.

‘no tirar basura’ (do not throw trash)
This, as far as we can tell, is a practical joke. If we are being generous we would say that the literacy rate is low.

‘no respondemos por su objetos’ (we are not responsible for your things)
We are also not responsible for objects we tie (or don’t tie) to the roof of our bus, or objects someone else takes, or objects that may fall on your head from the rack.