Independence Day 2 – Dinopark and the Running of the Torch

Day 2 of the Independence Day celebrations was easily one of the craziest days of my life. I'll try my best to put it into words! 

Thursday – September 14th

The day started at 3:30 a.m., when the majority of our students (most with at least 1 family member) met in town to board three buses that would take us on the day's adventures. Guatemala has a tradition the day before Independence Day of running a lit torch across the entire country (think the Olympic torch) to celebrate independence. In the last few decades, this tradition has evolved a bit. Now, rather than running a torch across an entire country, every school in the country goes out of town, then returns later in the day after lighting a torch and runs the torch through their town. Or at least this was my understanding of it at 3:30 on Thursday... 

In any case, we boarded busses to head to DinoPark, essentially the Guatemalan version of a themed park with life-size dinosaurs. It's all based on the Jurassic World movies. It's about a 2.5 hour drive without traffic. But as you can imagine, with so many schools trying to get somewhere all on the same day, and with the vast majority of Guatemalan highways being one-lane, there was plenty of traffic! But the thing about Guatemalan bus drivers is, they are not particularly inclined to wait in traffic... which brings me to a very necessary aside about Guatemalan buses:

The Chicken Buses – The Guatemalan Bus

Buses in Guatemala are called chicken buses, so named from their history of transporting passengers to market with actual chickens to sell. They are all old stick-shift school buses from the U.S. that have been painted in crazy colors and outfitted with a rack on top and crazy lights all over the place. No AC, no seatbelts, just an old beat-up school bus.

Chicken Buses are operated by a conductor (driver) and ayudante (helper). The conductor's job is to drive, while the ayudante spends the whole time hanging out the open door of the bus and let the conductor know if he is going to hit anything on the right side. The ayudante is also tasked with hopping off the moving bus to stop traffic if the bus needs to merge or turn around in the middle of a road (which happens more than one would think). If something needs to be strapped on top of the bus, the ayudante will climb up the back of the bus, strap it on, and then climb through the back door of the bus, all while the bus is moving. When going through town, the ayudante will also hop off the bus to run ahead and buy the conductor food or something to drink, then hop back on when the bus passes. Needless to say, it is a crazy (and very dangerous) job. 

And the whole not waiting in traffic thing? Well, Chicken Buses operate by what has been named el "ley de pesos" (the law of weights) which means unless a bigger/heavier vehicle is coming toward the bus, the driver relies on smaller vehicles to just get out of the way. That means Chicken Buses have few qualms about passing standstill traffic in the lane normally reserved for oncoming traffic. If that lane was back up, or if too many semi trucks were coming, then the chicken bus drivers would just drive on what exists as a "shoulder", even if that means driving with the bus titled sideways at a 45 degree angle. My first Chicken Bus experience was wild, and because we had rented the buses for the day, the drivers weren't even too worried about keeping a schedule. 

DinoPark

There weren't really any rides at DinoPark, but it was still fun to hang out with some of the friends I have made here. It was also cool to see Guatemala's interpretation of a theme park. That said, if I were 6 years old, I would have thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen! There were lifesize dinosaurs everywhere, fun exhibits like a "dinosaur nursery", and lots of dinosaur-themed snacks.

The Running of The Torch

On the way back from DinoPark that afternoon, we stopped in Quetzaltenango for the running of the torch. At this point, all the kids were decked out in headbands and had an array of noisemakers that sounded like a mix between a car horn and a vuvuzela, whistles, and Guatemalan flags. We all got off the bus and lit our torch at the town center where the Mayor welcomed us and gave a quick speech. Then we ran through the whole town with our torch, right down the middle of the street. We all made as much noise as possible with our various noisemakers, and almost every car and motorcycle we passed honked their horns, revved their engines, and made noise right along with us! It was a super cool way to show love for the country!

When we got back on the bus, I thought that was it and that we were headed straight home. I couldn't have been more wrong! We proceeded to stop right before every town on the way back, get out of the bus, and run our torch right down the main street of each town. We made as much noise as possible, the Chicken Buses followed us honking their horns repeatedly and holding up traffic, and every car or motorcycle we passed made as much noise as possible as well! The later it got, and the more towns we went through, the more people lined the streets to cheer us on. It was quite the sight to behold.

We finally made it back outside of Santiago (our hometown) around 9:30 pm about 4km from our school. We got out of the bus one more time and prepared to run the torch through town to our school. I was completely unprepared for what followed! By this point, the streets were completely lined with people waiting to welcome back all of their local schools from a long day of torch running. And they were almost all equipped with water. Hoses, buckets of water, water balloons, and anything that could hold water. As we ran through town with the torch (followed by the honking and lit-up Chicken Buses), they all cheered us on, honked horns, and completely doused us all with water. Buckets were being dumped off the tops of houses, squirt guns were used to full capacity, and hoses were switched to their most powerful settings. By the time we made it to the town center, we were completely soaked through. 

At the town center, at least 1,000 people were waiting for our arrival. There, the mayor gave a speech, one of our 6th-grade students gave a speech, and we shared the flame of our torch with the flame of the city's torch. 

Then we were off again with our school at the final destination (finally!). When we arrived at the school, waiting for us was plenty of food and drink. Our 6th-graders presented the Guatemalan flag and everyone sang the national anthem. It was super emotional to see the passion with which everyone sang after such a long and exhausting day. Patriotism here has a completely different meaning than in the U.S. – I think it is largely a result of the fact that freedom and liberty have rarely been given freely in Guatemala. When it's not taken for granted, it means a lot more. Then the second graders sang a song that they had rehearsed paying homage to Santiago Atitlan and several speeches were given. It was a long and exhausting day (I think it ended around 11:30 pm), but it was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life!