Riding the bus as social commentary

Riding the bus the other day, I was struck by how different worldviews play out in the smallest, as well as largest ways (you decide which is which). In the U.S., you enter the bus from the front, bringing you face to face with the driver and your obligation to pay the fare - maybe there's a machine you drop your coins into; maybe the driver takes your money himself; maybe there's a ticket you've already bought . . . but however it works, the very first thing you do is pay your money. No money, no entrance.

Now don't misunderstand - in Iraq, you must pay as well. But how the transaction takes place is instructive:

You enter on the side of the bus, rather than the front, bringing you into the crush of other riders, some of whom are sitting in front beside the driver. And then the payment system kicks in . . . you take out your change - as close to exact as you can get . . . tell the person in front of you how many people you are paying for, if it isn't obvious . . . and that person passes your money to the next person and the next, and so on, until it reaches the driver. Most times, if you need change, someone along the way will give it to you as a part of their own fare . . .

The other day was the quintessential Iraqi experience in bus-riding . . . two women got onto the bus . . . maybe they are together, maybe not . . . one of them is paying the fare with a very large bill . . . as she passes it forward, everyone has a look or a remark . . . it's all friendly, but you just don't give the driver (who is making change while he drives) a large bill. At the last, the woman who had handed up the large bill engaged in an extensive conversation/explanation about the large bill and her destination (aimed ostensibly at the driver, but including the entire bus - and the explanation was a long one) - she was amplifying what the other woman had already said.

The point(s)?

1. For good or for ill, everything you do is subject to observation, discussion and comment - no transaction is 'private' as I from the West would understand it.
2. Even getting your money to its intended destination means it will go through a number of hands before it gets there.
3. People often speak for each other here.
4. The obligation of hospitality kicks in on the bus as much as anywhere else, so that the obvious foreigner (in this case, that would be me) will always receive assistance in navigating, often without having to ask for it.
5. If you behave in a way out of the norm, an explanation is required, not only to the one most directly affected, but to all who are present at the time.
6. The bus is one of the best places to learn how to live and behave in a particular place.

If this had been in the U.S., the driver might have been miffed at having to make change, but that would have been the extent of the event and its significance. Here, an entire bus learned where a woman was headed and why she paid the driver with such a large bill (as even I, a foreigner, noticed that she had a smaller bill in her hand that she could have paid with but didn't - maybe I'm not so foreign after all.)

Next time you have to get somewhere, you might want to take the bus.

Peace and blessed riding,

Beth