By Mark Kendall

 

We arrived super early this morning to Oscar and Federico's shop to try to get a shop of them arriving and opening up the yard. I'm slightly hidden behind the front wheel of a nearby truck so that I don't draw too much attention to myself and I begin to wait. Then, from behind a pile of used tires to my left, I hear Oscar's laugh - he was sitting with his buddy Pinchazo on the porch of Pinchazo's shop and they were getting a kick out of watching me try to snipe an arrival shot.

Although I had to laugh at myself as I walked over to say hey, it turned out to be great that he was there early. He was reading the newspaper, so after a few minutes of catching up we took the chance to shoot a short scene with him reading us the day's news. After going through the stories page by page, listing off a few different incidents relating to the murders of bus drivers, he spoke a little bit about why it was that bus drivers are being targeted for murder around the country.

 

When Federico showed up, Oscar agreed to keep hush so as not to ruin the surprise. They had worked on Don Aurelio's new gear box until 10pm last night, so they were getting a late start on the day.

 

From this point on the camera spent most of the day in its bag. I didn't feel like shooting, there wasn't much going on related to the bus, and we had much more fun just hanging out.

 

First stop – Geromino's yard. Where are the missing parts? The parts are being sent via a large cargo ship from the US and Geronimo said the cargo box has been held up at the Guatemalan port of Puerto Barrios (on the Gulf coast near the Honduran border). Mingo had actually mentioned this shipment of parts that was on its way early on in our bus journey down here - I think he had said there was about USD$12,000 worth of parts that were on their way by ship.

 

Next stop – Ciudad Vieja, an early colonial capital of the country that is now home to the majority of the bus conversion workshops. This trip was not bus-related, though. We went to go check out the progress on the new paint job on Oscar's pickup truck – he said it was going to be “polychromatic coffee-colored.” The small workshop, surrounded by a corrugated tin fence, was situated at the very top of the city's main slope.

 

Andrew handed Oscar the still camera and I gave Federico the video camera to let them shoot a bit and be on the other side of the lens for a change. They both loved it – Oscar was running around making funny photographer impersonations as he snapped dozens of pictures of his truck being painted, while Federico sat on an old bus driver's seat in a spaced-out trance, looking through a viewfinder with headphones on as if he were seeing and hearing for the very first time.

 

On the ride back it began to rain, so all four of us squeezed into the the cab of Federico's truck. We were squeezed in there so tight that he could barely shift gears, so we puffed along the highway, laughing and drawing strange looks from the people that would pass by.

 

Geronimo called and needed some of the bus' parts. Ezekiel came in a pickup truck and hauled them off. He returned an hour or two later with replacements.

 

Their shop has no electricity, but they're often using tools that require power – how does that work? They run an old cable from a friend's shop across the street. The end of it is frayed so the two wires are visible, and they usually just tie them onto whatever power cable needs to be juiced in order to get the current flowing. “Isn't that dangerous?” we ask, a bit surprised. “Well, it gives us a small little shock every now and then but nothing too bad.”

 

We took turns shocking each other and then headed home.