The roads here in Guatemala aren't very well cared for, and this week the bus drivers decided to protest by stopping traffic all over Guatemala on the main highways. They do this sort of protest often, but this time it was followed by an interesting "caravan" of micro-buses headed towards Guatemala City.
On the day of the "caravan," Veronica and I (Heather) were invited to play Scrabble in town with a lady from church, a friend of mine named Adriana, whose daughter is on my dance team. She had bought the game in English and didn't understand the instructions!
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Here is a picture of Adriana in her store
(earlier, with Elena). |
As we were playing Scrabble at a table in Adriana's clothing store, a police
car slowly made its way up the main street past us, followed by a large
group of men, one of whom was speaking into a microphone, declaring in
various ways how unhappy the drivers were with the way the government
was ignoring the bad condition of the roads.
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The front of the group with men on foot
and a truck with loudspeakers. |
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The caravan of micro-buses headed
into town was very long. |
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We were told there were 200 buses
in the caravan. |
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When we were finished with our Scrabble game, I planned to go into town to do my weekly grocery shopping, but the caravan was still slowly passing by. Here in Guatemala, I always take time to judge a situation to decide if we are safe to be there or if we should leave. In this case, it was a peaceful procession at that point, and there seemed to be other "normal" cars mixed in, so I got in my car and joined the parade! It took a long time to make it up to the grocery store, but we finally did!
