Bus-related stories

Feb 17
Dhenkanal

I love bus rides. Not only have I NOT been puked on for an entire week, but we’ve been going further and further afield and into some wicked scenery. I had (mistakenly) believed that all of Orissa consisted of barren dusty plains of reddish/yellowish/brownish rock with no potential other than for quarrying, games of cricket, and my attempts at photography. However, the other day I saw my first true forest! I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated trees so much. No maple, pine, spruce or other favourites but plenty of coconut palms and lots of much-needed shade. (Indian spring = hotter than any Canadian summer… and I only have one salwar with short sleeves. Yes, I’m a sweaty, grimy ball of irritation on the bad days, although most of the time I can accept and relish the sweaty griminess.) The rice paddies are also getting going and I have lots of mental photos of cotton-sari-clad women planting handfuls of bright green baby rice stalks in the flooded fields. Unfortunately the ride is too bumpy for real photos.

The other day I saw my first roadkill. Not a squirrel, luckily not a cow, but sadly, a dog. The worst part: there were intestines. I also saw my first accident. Two transport trucks had collided and landed in the ditch. Didn’t see more details than that. Last, I saw my first incidence of road-rage. A guy on a motorbike swerved in front of the bus yelling at our driver. Apparently one of the patients in the back had spit out some pano (mix of herbs and spices wrapped in a leaf that you chew and spit, leaving your mouth and teeth stained an attractive dark red), and this attractive gob of red goo and seeds had landed on the front of his dress-shirt. Our driver suffered the blame and had to listen to some ranting as well as deftly avoid hitting the guy. On top of that, he (our driver) wasn’t feeling great and had just stopped to puke out the window. Rough day.

P.S. The volunteers who were here in fall just told me they had a nickname for the bus: the Vomitron.