Guest Entry: School buses

The following is a guest entry by Michael Lewis:

A familiar sight to anyone who has spent some time in and around Quetzaltenango is the presence of a fleet of American school buses that have been decked out with rooftop racks, and frequently painted crazy colors. These are typically referred to as “chicken buses”. Despite the bright yellow color of most of them, and the fact that many of them still say “School District X” on the side, these are not used to carry kids to school. This is Guatemalan public transportation in most places outside the capital. Thousands commute in and out of the larger cities like Quetzaltenango on these buses every day. If you need to travel across the country, these may be one of the cheapest ways to go, but be prepared for it to be crowded.

Anyhow, I was a little surprised the first time I saw one of these school buses. I can’t say I had given much thought to the question of where our old school buses go to die, but now I know. And recently I found out a little more about the process of getting them here.

Turns out the uncle of Martín’s wife plays a pretty big role in the process. While visiting some of Martín’s extended family for a birthday celebration for his wife’s grandmother (now in her 70s) I got a tour of the school bus shop.

When American school buses arrive in country, they’ll go to a guy like this uncle to be processed because they’re usually too long for Guatemalan roads (specifically making tight turns on narrow city roads). So the buses get cut down shorter and rebuilt. It’s not that complicated and it makes a lot of sense, but it was still pretty cool to have it explained to me. So this is not a long post, but I did take a couple photos. Notice the points where the bus was soldered back together, and the slices that were removed.