Bus Strike and My Ensuing Boredom

Today I woke up early, got dressed quickly, and was well on my way to getting to the PC center not only on time, but early! Then I received a phone call that there were no buses and the highway to the capital was blocked. Now, I lived in Argentina, so I am used to strikes and burning tires in the middle of the road. But from my experience, these strikes are usually to demand something from the government- a raise in teachers’ wages, more classes in the public university, or better health care. In this case, however, the buses are privately owned companies that are striking to raise pasaje (the amount they charge from one location to another). I guess it almost makes sense if the drivers are asking to raise pasaje and striking against their own companies who don’t want to, but I am not convinced that that is the case. Another possibility is that the strike is to show passengers how much they need the buses so that they won’t get mad when prices are raised. But why wouldn’t a private company just raise the prices when they wanted to? Or it is possibly a problem between unions. I am obviously still missing some important pieces of this puzzle. I will continue to contemplate the situation while I wait for instructions from PC.

While I am here with nothing to do, I would like to share one way in which I have contributed to this country so far. I taught my host-family to pop popcorn in the microwave. Life changing, I know. They have had a microwave for a while, but it was broken until a cousin fixed it. So then I taught them to pop their own popcorn and it was like Christmas. I knew I should have put my microwave skills on my resume.