The Great Bus Strike

Wednesday morning and still order has not been restored in the city of Bogotá. The current situation here with the mass transit that i rely on daily is becoming increasingly standoffish as well as tiresome, especially for the commuter. The southern portion of the city has a reputation as being more dangerous, and the northern neighborhoods have a reputation of safeness, cleanliness, and an over all better quality of life. So, it is very common to see people working in the south, and living in the north. Calles are the streets that run from east to west, and help measure how far north or south you live in the city (with carreras run north to south). For example, i live on calle 145, and i work on calle 26. I do not own a car and public transportation is absolutely necessary to my vitality. Right now there is a strike though with the buses... and it has made for a very difficult three days. My sister arrived in Bogota Sunday night, and the next day was my first day of work. The blue bus, with a sign in the window that reads ¨Germania¨ when running south is the one i take every morning, and it just happens to make its only right hand turn directly in front of the building where my sister needed to go. We rode the bus together, after being passed by three full buses, and I got off at my stop for work. The last thing that I told her to remember, when the bus turns right, you need to get off and you will recognize the green door (it is her second visit in Bogotá). Well, come to find out later that afternoon, the bus never made a right hand turn, in fact it stopped in the middle of carrera 7a, and told everyone to get out. Apparently bus drivers around the city have been throwing rocks at the scabs operating the buses, breaking out windows and hitting passengers, and this particular scab did not want to wait until the rocks where being thrown. So my sister found her self with a cellphone that had no minutes, in a foreign country, in a city with 8,000,000 other people, and no ability to speak Spanish. Thank the good lord our friend Nisma made a call to my sis and came and found her so she could make it to her destination. That is just one story of many by the people being affected by this strike. The mayor authorized owners of trucks to drive around the city and pick people up in the bed of the truck for 2000 pesos (about 1 dollar) while the strike has been taking place. All over the city it is a common site right now to see truck beds packed to the rim full of people. Something has got to give because this whole city is dependent on the bus systems (pico placa means car owners can only drive three of the five weekdays, so EVERYONE uses mass transit) and if the system is crippled the city is slightly crippled. Even though, like we see with the trucks, it is a resourceful country and people will continue to find a way... but this strike needs to stop.