I was recently on a bus in which the engine caught on fire…
So I meant to write this entry months ago but got side tracked, any way here it goes. A few months back I had the scariest moment of my PC career. It started out like a normal day. I went for the day to Santa Rosa (the closest city to my site), to have lunch and do some shopping. I met up with some of the new volunteers in the area, and everything went well until the ride home.
We got to about the half way mark in the journey when suddenly screams and shouts started emanating from the back of the bus. After a year in country without a bus assault (which is kind of a miracle in a country where bus assaults are basically the second biggest national past time after futbol) I figured my time had come. Just when I was about to try to hide all of my valuables in my shoes and poop my pants preemptively (our security officer actually presented this as something to do if they start to take you hostage, apparently hijackers tend to have an aversion to stinky hostages) I turned and saw a wall of smoke headed my way from the back of the bus, preceded by a stampede of Hondurans. Oddly enough this was actually a welcome sight, in so much as none of the people rushing my way was holding a gun (you know you’ve been in Honduras too long when…). Despite my monetary relief I realized that it was probably still a good idea to get the hell out of the rapidly filling with smoke bus, and so I stood up grabbed my bag and headed for the door. This was surprising easy, despite the onslaught of people surging past my seat, primarily because as a big American guy I had a serious size advantage on everyone there. I figured I would use this to my advantage and calmly walk to the front of the bus despite the people panicking and trying to shove me forward onto the people in front of me. This strategy was working well, until full on panic set in, in the heard and guys trapped in their seats by the wall of people began kicking out the windows with their cowboy boots and diving out onto the ground (like a good six foot drop). This served to ratchet up the panic a few notches as well as spray glass shards around the bus.
This is the point when I lost my calm and collected demeanor and made a break for the front of the bus. For some reason all I could think at that moment was “Holy Crap this bus is going to explode,” (I think part of this is that I read an article in the paper a few months before about how a mini-bus had gotten in a crash and then exploded and most of the people inside had burned to death). Anyway, I’m honestly not sure how I got there so fast but somehow I ended up being like the 5th guy out of the bus, despite having started like mid way back. I’m not saying that I trampled anyone on the way out, but at the end there I may have picked up an old lady and front of me and run off the bus with her rather than wait for her to make it down the steps on her own.
Once outside breathing fresh air and away from the panicked shouts inside I realized that my final surge may not have been necessary ( but hey hind sight is 20-20, and it is better to be a little over zealous in your escape than to get burned to death on an old American touring bus from the 1970s while traveling in rural Honduras). As I was regaining my breath I realized that one of the new volunteers still hadn’t emerged from the bus, which was now spewing smoke from numerous broken out windows (the other had followed in my wake and emerged right after me). This is when I heard a panicked English speaking voice and looked up to see her standing in one of the blown out windows. It seems she had started to climb out of it then looked down and thought better of the 6 foot drop and was stuck half way out of the window, pretty much in full on panic mode. I quickly rushed underneath her and reached up to help her down, as I talked soothingly to try to calm her down. It’s at about this point that she started climbing down me like a human ladder (conveniently stepping on my head) and then slipped and fell. I had to catch her and lower her to the ground. It was pretty awesome to get to be the hero saving the woman in distress (though I was far less composed and graceful than in the movies), and it also helped redeem me a bit after all of that old lady trampling on my way out of the bus.
