Jeaninne

There is a quote in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that gets me, rather, I remember it. ¨So shines a good deed in a weary world¨. Oh, the wisdom of Wonka.

A couple of days ago I had the worst bus trip in my experience of crappy bus trips. It started well before this, but for the sake of blog-brevity I´ll start at bus number 2. I was put in the front row of the 7 hour overnight bus, there is no seat in front to put your feet under when you are at the front of a bus, there is only a wall. My seat was broken, if I put any weight on the backrest it reclined violently. It reclined violently into a mother and her infant child. The chair squeaked, that irritating creaking, squaking squeak so that every time I failed to maintain complete uprightness squeaked and pissed everyone off. I didn´t sleep a wink that night. Bus number 5 began after the following day was passed sleeplessly in a town called Arica in Northern Chile. Skip to Bus number 5. This was a 30 hour journey to Santiago. I chose the front seat in this trip because I was assured it was a double decker sleeper bus, at the front of these buses you can put your feet up, stretch out and appreciate the view from above the driver. The bus wasn´t a double decker and I was in no state to see the a 30 hour trip (on the back of a day and a half of no sleep, 4 shitty buses and a border crossing) for its character building potential. I was livid but only had the energy to feel defeated and sorry. A weary world was an understatement.

I sat down and the lady next to me spoke to me about putting my bags in the overhead compartment so that we had more space. I translated this to ¨as soon as you go to sleep my accomplice is going to come and steal your passports, your wallet and your ipod¨. I replied in english with ¨spare us masthead, not in the mood¨. She was confused, but sensed my tone as hostile and seemed a little upset. My foul mood continued, she gave up on the bags issue but continued to press my weary mind and dwindling patience with spanish to find out where i was from, what i do, had been doing, why had my parents moved to australia and what was the origin of my strange name... Turbo? Her name was Jeaninne and she was far too pleasant for the situation. I just sat there and started ignoring her questions, pretending i couldn´t hear her, what a dick eh. I noticed her keep on looking sideways at my sultry, miserable face and I got the sense that she was starting to feel how pathetic I had become. There was a spare seat in the front row opposite to us. Jeaninne moved. So shone a good deed and I slept 8 hours.

So much for blog-brevity.