10 Culture

Ticket to Riches kound on Mexican City Bus

Linda Glover
Guest Contributor

t is mid-December and my partner and I are ona flight

returning from Mexico. I remain dressed for summer and
sit crunching the salted ends of my hair. The thought of
Christmas Madness awaiting us at home does little to ease the
sadness I feel at leaving. To distract myself, I shift my focus
to the newspaper I picked up from the departure lounge in
Vancouver a week ago. I read an article victoriously advising
Canadians that our middle-class has nudged past America’s in
conquering the quest for the American Dream. It states that
through the value and commitment Canadian people place
on hard work, we’ve achieved prosperity and success. We’ve
made it! We’re rich—well on our way to having it all. I call
bullshit. The richest people in the world can be found on an
antiquated Mexican city bus.

My visceral reaction to this story angers me and I regret
my decision to read it. It feels an ugly intrusion into

the beautiful memories I have mere hours to savour
before the plane lands and I’m smacked in the face by
the realities of my life. I stow the paper, close my eyes
and try to dissect my thoughts. And in that dissection,

1 am taken back to the first 24 hours of our vacation.

After an evening spent people watching on Vancouver’s
Granville Street, we caught the Canada Line to our hotel near
the airport. Observing an ever changing train-scape of riders,
we were awestruck by their constant denominator—oblivious
to those around them, fully engrossed in the alternate

reality streamed to them through the inanimate rectangular
objects they coveted in their hands, hunched over and

closed to the real world, spines forming a protective letter

C. Their blatant detachment was a screaming example of
what our society has become—a disconnected, nomophobic,
increasingly narcissistic, me and want wasteland.

Hours later, our flight history, we threw on our packs and
charged out the doors of the Puerto Vallarta airport, giddy
with excitement that the rejuvenation of our weary souls
was about to begin. The heat and humidity hugged us in
welcome as we made our way through the chaos to the bus
stop to await our time machine—the Centro city bus. We
paid our seven pesos and were gifted a seat by a young boy
who offered to stand in our place. “Gracias,” we said. “You're
welcome,” he replied—no ‘No problema’ here—with pride in
his English skills and respect that we were visitors, guests
in his country. We gratefully sat and the rumble started.

Over the unmuffled groan of the diesel engine, the grinding
of gears as the driver threw his charge into traffic and the
rattles and sighs of the ancient undercarriage beating itself
over the time-worn roads, the rumble became magic as a

beautiful noise grew within the bus. People were talking. To
each other. They were turned in their seats, moving back
and forth, calling down the aisle and offering greetings

to one and other. They were smiling and laughing and
engaged. They were present. In the moment. On the bus.

The driver greeted every rider. Young men stood up and
offered their seats to the women and elders who got on

at different stops. Parents fussed over their children—
listened to their stories, showed interest in little fingers
pointed out of windows and offered snacks from their bags.
Buskers boarded at different stops and stood in the aisle

to entertain their captive audience. A woman in curious
clown make-up with a baby strapped to her chest performed
a comedy routine, and an elderly man in a polyester suit
and cowboy hat strummed his guitar and sang songs

of Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride in beautiful, broken
English. At the end of each performance, the audience
offered up a few pesos and applause as their gratitude.

We left the bus at the Malecon and headed deeper into
Old Towne to find a room to rent. We followed a group of
families who'd been riding our bus, and as we walked we
drew ourselves closer to feed off their excitement. A few
blocks in, there were crowds in the street and the sound

of a marching band’s approach. While we waited for the
parade, a mother handed her young son a small roll of caps
from a bag in her pocket. One-by-one he dropped them on
the roadway and stomped them until they let out a crack,
triggering his contagious laughter and claps of approval
from his family beside me. True joy from a simple game.

Throughout our week in Puerto Vallarta, the bus
and its community of riders played a critical
and welcomed role in our quest to vacate,
and rendered me nostalgic with
memories of a simpler time. It
was a time before technology
‘improved’ our lives and
‘connected’ us, a time
when we didn’t
particularly
want for
anything.
Instead, we
were grateful
for what

we had and
valued those
around us.

Our ‘Smart,
like-me-like-
me-please
society has
dumbed itself

down to the point where an industry of personal coaching
has been birthed to teach, or re-teach, people the lost art

of communicating face-to-face. We’ve lost our values and
empathy as the line between want and need has become
desperately skewed, our craving for society’s approval of

us so insatiable we’re willing to sell our souls for material
statements that feed us a false sense of esteem and announce
to people who don’t really matter that we’ve made it.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers eight definitions

of the word rich. The first is “having abundant possessions
and especially material wealth:” the second is “having

high value or quality.” Ironically, as it pertains to life, the
opportunity cost of the first is the second. When our time
on Earth is over, our abundant possessions and material
wealth, our achievement of the ‘American Dream) won’t
matter. Neither will our Platinum MasterCard, gazillion dollar
home, tricked out vehicle, Employee of the Year plaque, 700
Facebook friends, Twitter history, unlimited texting account
or Instagram album. What will matter will be the value we
place on the people closest to us and the authenticity we’ve
woven between our lives and theirs. This is a lesson easily
learned by the example of the richest people in the world.
They can be found on an antiquated Mexican city bus.

sures