Story Time

In the past few days, I have had a few "dumb foreigner" moments. They are all humorous enough that the recipients of the stories laugh even though I am the one doing the telling. (FYI, I am terrible at telling stories). Sadly though, the humor apparently does not transfer through the internet too well, as I tried to tell a story to a friend the other day and it fell appalling short of funny. Having said all of that, I am going to attempt to tell another story. I apologize ahead of time.

I first need to explain the bus system in Macau. Many of my fellow teammates have fallen victim to the notorious enemy we call the bus. We will get on the bus thinking we are going to one place and then end up in, well I would say another, but the truth is we do not have a clue where we are when we get off of the bus. It is funny when we will go some place we have yet to go and someone will usually say, "Oh, I have been here before. I missed my stop and ended up here, I just didn't know where 'here' was." So without going into too much detail, I will just say that the buses are confusing and difficult to master. The buses are not our friends.

So today I had a new experience with the bus. I was meeting one of the students that attends our Friday night bible study at the fountain near my apartment. From there we were going to take a bus to a nearby school to go swimming. When we boarded the bus, it was unusually empty, which afforded us the luxury of sitting rather than standing. However, we were unable to sit together. I sat at the front of the bus (right behind the driver), and she sat in the center, more towards the back of the bus. This particular bus had a door at the front through which the passengers boarder, and a door at the back that was used for passengers exiting the bus. As we pulled up to the next bus stop, I think about, oh, I would guess 1000 people, boarder the bus. Ok, maybe not 1000, but I honestly do not think that one more person could have squeezed in the door. At the next bus stop, someone else squeezed in the door. The same thing happened at the next one, and the next one, and well, you get the picture. The bus was crowded. At this point the distance between me and that back door could have been a mile. Molly stands up and tells me that this is where we need to get off. Great. So I begin the struggle of squeezing past people and throwing out an 'm goi' (excuse me in Cantonese) every now and then, in am attempt to get off of the bus. I can no longer see Molly at this point, as she was much closer to the door and had already successfully navigated to maze of people and seats. I finally make it to the back door, only to have it close right in my face. It was like a scene in a movie. Molly and I were both trying to stop the door from closing and when we realize that our attempts are futile, we reach for each other, only to have our clasped hands seperated by the closing door. Meanwhile, the bus begins to slowly inch forward.

By this time some other passengers on the bus have realized that I need to get off here and that, obviously, I do not speak Cantonese. So the Chinese people, being the helpful people that they are, all start yelling. I think they are yelling at the bus driver, telling him to not take off, while simultaneously yelling at me to push the signal button again. While all of this chaos is going on inside the bus, Molly is outside running alongside the bus, banging on the door beside the driver, trying to get his attention. Well, something must have worked because eventually the bus stopped moving, and the door opened. Ahh, Freedom.

After a couple more 'm goi's' (which can also mean thank you), I stepped off of the bus to face Molly laughing hysterically. After we both stopped laughing, she began to give me a few suggestions as to what I should do if ever I were to find myself in that same situation. She taught me how to tell the bus driver in Cantonese that I still needed to get off of the bus. You would think that after such a harrowing experience, those words would be seared in my brain for all time. Nope. Its gone.

So apparently, I did not impress Molly with my bus skills, because she would not take 'no' to her offer to escort me home. She road the bus with me back toward my apartment, which is in the opposite direction from her house, and then transferred buses to go home. It was very sweet and I had a great time with Molly, but, yes, apparently I do still need someone to take care of me occasionally.