A Post In Real Time

There's a famous episode of Seinfeld during which the plot consists of the gang waiting for a table at a restaurant in real time, for an entire 30 minute episode. This is my restaurant episode.

I have been sitting on a bus in Kingston for an hour and a half waiting for it to load and there are still 6-8 seats available depending on the size of the person who takes them. I'm writing this entry on my phone; a large wheezy old woman on my left, the window to my right. Men and women are wandering around the park loaded with things to sell. The typical phrase is shouted: " juice an wata! Wata an juice! Banana chips, phone cyaad!" There is a man wandering around selling burned CDs and playing  it on a boombox. Some sell bootleg DVDs, donuts, electronic accessories, newspapers, souvenirs... and then there are the soup and patty men: balancing a vat of soup on a hubcap filled with hot coals on top of a pushcart. Their customers are the passengers, passing money along to the door or through the windows.

The country bus park is one of several bus parks in Kingston but the only one that sends passengers into "country" ie: west of Kingston. It's location is by default quite grimey as it sits on the edge of Town, behind Coronation Market, nestled between empty lots full of market trash: plastic refuse, coconut husks, sugar cane trash, old tarps, wood crates, pallets and I imagine quite a lot of urine. Even though the bus park is walled and lined with colorfully painted food shacks, the breeze carries the scent of sewage into the bus. Having arrived very early this morning, the place is rather clean and not filled with vehicles or shouting loada men-  but I've seen it brimming with tumbleweeds of garbage in the past, along with a loud tangle of ductas, drivas, loada men, vendors and a colorful array of busses.

I've counted 5 empty seats. The driver has closed the windows and turned on the radio and the AC, a perk of getting a coaster and not a mini bus. But coasters are much bigger and take longer to load. The newspaper man has come onto the bus singing his headlines and asked if I can take him with me-a very common demand Jamaicans make of white people and pretty girls. I responded " mi nuh go noweh Yuh cyaan go." and to his assertion that he doesn't care where I go if he can come: "mi boyfrien a go vex wi dat."

I'm getting quite tired of this wait. I wish I had a better view for a picture or two. My phone battery soon finish as well. It's now been almost two hours. It takes 4 to reach Westmoreland. A rasta man with a cart full of cell phone covers and ear buds has stopped by my window to repair  a wheel. The cart keeps flopping against the side of the bus.

Because I didn't do laundry before I came to Kingston, I had no clean jeans. I'm regretting the choice  to wear shorts over a skirt as my thighs predictably stick to the hot seat. 

FINALLY! We're off! Two hours and 20 minutes later. See ya in Westmoreland kids!