01/08/10

Becca and I don’t need to do much to be noticed here. We look and dress a little differently. When Becca speaks Spanish, she sounds as if she were trained in Chile, and when I open my mouth, I sound as if I were trained by a pack of wild dogs.

This is why my anxiety was particularly high as I battled intense motion sickness on a crowded bus headed for the coast over New Year’s weekend. We were accompanied by approximately eighty unsuspecting passengers heading westbound through the serpentine high Andean roads en route to Guayaquil. Our original bus had broken down, and we were forced to hop on the next bus, whose seats were all occupied. That left the rest of us to stand and face sideways, which for any of you who suffer from motion sickness should signify severe danger.

Within ten minutes, I began to sweat profusely. There were two hours of travel remaining, and it soon became clear that this time would not pass without incident. Another few minutes stutter by, and the layer of sweat coating my face and body begin to thicken. A teenage girl stands in front of me, and our feet touch gently. Her mother is behind me. There are nice-looking people everywhere. I look back with a helpless expression to Becca, who is separated by a few passengers, hoping perhaps she will have the cure to my rapidly deteriorating condition. “You look green,” she said. “What are you going to do?” I was not in a position to answer rationally as I had entered survival mode. Becca sensed this and began her heroics, forcefully attracting the attention of a man we had earlier befriended. He proceeded to break into the separate cabin that housed the driver, demanding that he stop the bus: a white man was sick. The man grabbed my arm for stability and briskly shepherded me outside. As if on cue, I began to vomit on the side of the road three feet from the bus, my back turned to eighty craned Ecuadorian necks wondering why their bus had stopped in the middle of nowhere.

Fortunately, I felt better shortly after, and I was offered a special seat in the front cabin with the driver, allowing me to look straight ahead. The final two hours were relatively painless, save for some minor emotional repercussions. On the return trip, I rediscovered the beauty of Dramamine and slept like a baby.

We hope that your New Year brings much peace, love, and connection. And remember, keep your eyes fixed straight ahead. It seems to be safer that way.