Waiting

As I write this I sit at the carretera (the main road) that runs from Chivay to Tuti, to Sibayo, and through Callalli. It is the one road of transportation, but more like an extremely long gravel road filled with assorted large rocks and plenty of dips and bumps. I am watching 2 cows stand in the middle of it about 10 feet from me, staring at me (I’m starting to notice a consistency of cows and I staring at each other) as they wait for their owners who are loading bulky bag after bag on their donkey whose legs are actually buckling from the weight. There is an old Incan trail that one can take from Tuti, through Canocota to Chivay, but it is only walk able for people. Thus the carretera is not only filled with rocks, dips, and bumps, but with sheep, donkeys, cows, the herders of the likes, bicyclists, taxi collectivos and combis packed with people, and the local farmer.
The farmers take their livestock up and down this road to graze on their land outside of town, and then return them to the security of the city limits before nightfall. Going to Chivay is not a problem for me since it is the provincial capital. If it is a market day (Monday and Thursday) and I am out by the plaza by 7:30am, I can usually find a ride in a half hour. On non-market days it can be about 2 hours of waiting, and nearly impossible to find a ride to Chivay from 10am to 4pm, and you can forget about going to Chivay after 6pm. Today I am going to Sibayo to go celebrate a volunteer’s birthday. Sibayo is not on the way to the provincial capital and thus is much more difficult to find a ride to. So here I sit waiting at the main road for a collectivo or a mini-combi to drive by with passengers from Chivay. Since it is Friday, I have no idea how many hours I could be waiting. Now going into my fifth month in Peru, waiting has become apart of my daily routine. I wait for collectivos, combis, delayed buses from Chivay to Arequipa City, delayed flights in Lima and Arequipa City airport, I wait for meetings to start at 8pm in the municipalidad when they were scheduled at 6 pm, I wait in collectivos and combis until every possible inch of sitting space is taken up and then we wait for 2 more passengers, I wait 2 weeks until I am outside of Tuti and in a place with a cell phone signal and/or internet to be able to receive information for projects and to be able to contact family and friends, I wait 3 weeks to go to a Arequipa City and get my mail. To go from Tuti to Arequipa City I spend 5 hours sitting, and for my future bus trip to La Libertad I will spend about 45 hours on a bus round trip. Not only do I spend a lot time in buses, combis, and collectivos, but the time spent in them is in a very uncomfortable position where I reach the threshold of discomfort and I have to find a happy place in mind which is usually a wide open space with my legs stretched out.
My patience has reached new levels, and to sit anywhere waiting for hours and hours becomes a treat if my legs have room. Especially being in a different country waiting to go to Chivay, Arequipa City, or anywhere else in Peru never gives me the feeling of waiting to be somewhere else because in my reality I am already there, I am in Peru.