Son of a Bus

So I tried to outsmart the village bus, but I failed…miserably.

On Saturday, the volunteers in my oblast met up in Zhmerynka to celebrate Patrick’s 23rd birthday and cheer on the U.S. soccer team. Patrick invited us to come to his apartment around eleven. I expected to arrive between eleven and twelve. I’m pretty comfortable traveling to and fro now, and I didn’t think it would be particularly hard to get myself to Zhmerynka.

There is a bus that goes from Bar to Zhmerynka. It’s a village bus though, and it snakes through the small villages scattered between the “big” cities. It’s a windy, bumpy, slow ride that takes nearly two hours. The bus is old and rickety and always crammed full of people. I didn’t particularly want to take the village bus, and I figured it would be more comfortable and convenient to simply take a marshrutka to Vinnystia and proceed from there to Zhmerynka. I would save about 30 minutes in travel time and I would stick to the main road so it would be fast without the frequent stops.

I left Bar at nine o’clock in the morning. I was feeling good and looking forward to spending the day with other volunteers. When I got to the bus station in Vinnystia, I bought a ticket to Zhmerynka. The final destination of the bus was a smaller city 30 minutes beyond where I wanted to go, but the lady assured me that it stopped in Zhmerynka. I had about 45 minutes to kill before my bus, so I ran across the street to the supermarket to stock up on cat food. I also found the perfect birthday present for Patrick in the toy section of the store. I bought him a toy police set with a badge, handcuffs, a headset, a walkie-talkie and a dart gun. The packaging said, “Police vs. the Bad Guyz”. I knew it was ridiculous enough for Patrick to appreciate, and probably use in the classroom.

After purchasing my goods, I scampered back across the street to catch my bus. I was a little disappointed to find that my bus was old and rickety. I thought for sure I’d be on a newer, fast bus. This should have been my first red flag. My second red flag should have been when the bus left 15 minutes late. Trains and buses leave with breathtaking punctuality in this country. It’s rare for a bus to leave late. Still, I didn’t think about it too much. I’d double-checked the sign in the front window as I got on, and it said Shogorod, the final destination of the bus on my ticket. I relaxed in my seat, absorbed myself in my I-Pod, and planned on taking a little nap. I fully expected to be in Zhmerynka in 30 minutes.

The bus finally left at 11:20. As it pulled away, the clutch made horrible, grinding noises. Sweet, I thought to myself. Nice bus. I glanced out the window one last time long enough to see a marshrutka parked to the side of the station with a sign in it’s window that said Shogorod thru Zhmerynka. Huh, I thought to myself.

With much lurching and clutch grinding, my bus pulled out of the station and proceeded down the main road. A few kilometers outside of Vinnystia, it turned right down a smaller, more obscure road. Sweet, I thought to myself, I’m on a village bus—the very thing I drove an hour out of my way to avoid.

It was slow going as we lurched and grinded along. I text messaged Sandy to let her know that I was going to be a little late to the party, as I was stuck on a damn village bus and it was leisurely winding through the countryside, in no particular hurry to reach Zhmerynka.

An hour and half later, about the time my I-Pod died, I started to get a sinking feeling that this bus was not going thru Zhmerynka at all. I still had no proof at that point, but in my gut, I knew. With no small amount of self-hatred, I admitted that I was on the wrong bus, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to ride it to the end, because at least in Shogorod, I’d be able to catch something to Zhmerynka. There was no point in getting off. The villages we were going thru were so small and obscure that I couldn’t even guarantee that a bus would come in the other direction to take me back to Vinnystia. I had no idea how far away from Shogorod we even were, nor really, how far Shogorod was from Zhmerynka. I was stuck.

The countryside was beautiful. We drove through farmlands and woods, past lakes and rivers, stopping to let people on and off at random. I felt helpless and hopeless and I really had to pee. Time crept by at roughly the same pace that the village bus lurched, grinded and crawled along.

At 2:00, two and a half hours into the ride, the bus started smoking out the back end. The driver pulled it to the side of the road and told everyone on board to get off. Thankfully, we were passing thru a village at the time. Passengers got of the bus and scattered to different homes asking for buckets of water. For the next 30 minutes, the driver doused water underneath the bus, near the back tire, where the smoke was billowing out thick. As I was standing off to the side, contemplating whether I had to go to the bathroom enough to ask the old lady standing in her yard watching if I could use her toilet, I looked at the sign on the front of the bus. It was different than when I boarded at eleven o’clock.

The sign had changed from Shogorod, to Shogorod thru Trypin. My suspicions were confirmed. I would not be passing thru Zhmerynka. I tried to call to the party, but I had no cell phone service out in the middle of nowhere. My morale was, to the say least, low.

As soon as the bus stopped smoking, we boarded again and continued on our way. With each hill we climbed, the lady sitting across from the aisle from me crossed herself. I wanted to lean over and tell her, I know what you mean.
At three o’clock, the bus finally rumbled into Shogorod. I got off as fast as I could and bought a ticket to Zhmerynka. I called the party to tell them I was finally on my way. They promised me a white Russian upon my arrival.

I waited around for another hour before the marshrutka showed up. As I boarded, I triple-checked the destination with the driver. My day of traveling was exhausting. The older woman sitting facing me on the marshrutka kept staring at me, at my shoes (definitely not Ukrainian) and at my bag of cat food and police toys. I kept staring at her bag of green onions and her impressively huge hands. We didn’t speak.
I finally made it to Zhmerynka at five o’clock. The party was pretty much over. Half the people left an hour after I got there. I stayed the night. I wasn’t particularly eager to climb back on the bus.

The U.S. world cup game didn’t start until ten that night. I only made to half time before falling asleep on the couch. It was a combination of the white Russians and my day of slow, mindless travel. It really took it out of me.

I head out to a summer camp in the Carpathian Mountains this week. The camp is seven days of camping and teaching survival skills, whatever that means. I’m excited. It should be fun, and as we’re traveling in a big group, I think the chances of another village bus situation occurring are rather slim.