Aiga buses (pasi) !!! We've
thought this word was spellled "busi" all year, and just learned that
it's actually "pasi", not "busi". But considering Samoans
do not differentiate between their B's and P's, things can get confusing real
fast. Some students cannot tell the difference between "poops" and
"boobs", "pitch" (as in the name of the movie that Samoan
students have watched 55 times since it came out "Pitch Perfect") and
another word that rhymes with it.....; the list goes on and on.
some of this blog has been inspired by/parts have been taken from a past world teachers' blog some years ago, with my own editing.
Aiga means
"family" in Samoan. The aiga buses
are driven by any member of a family who can buy/remodel/make a bus, and the
money goes to the family rather than the government or a private company.
Aiga buses are "seki
a" (sec-ee ah) (=cool/awesome) for a few reasons. They are all made
out of the front of a pickup truck. Samoans somehow attach the rest of the bus
to the pickup truck cab. The inside of the buses are usually entirely wood and
the roofs are made from long, curved pieces of wood, which are beautiful (and
weirdly remind me of cabins in Vermont, haha!)
They have simple plastic windows that you slide up when it rains.
The inside and the outside
of the buses are quite elaborate. Each gets a crazy paint job and a name or
some kind of slogan scrolled across the side. These can be anywhere from
"West Side", "God is Awesome", or the American
flag. Some have public service announcement-type advertisements with pictures
or photographs about ocean safety, driving safety, drinking & driving,
etc. The inside cab of the buses are
decorated with everything- crazy fuzzy zebra or leopard print fabrics, tassels,
lights, boas. And about 20 pine tree air fresheners hang inside some of them,
haha!
 |
I've posted this picture before of a
Leone bus showing it's Lion Pride!!! |
Riding a bus is quite an
experience. In the morning and afternoons the buses get super packed. The
seats/benches are tiny and 2 small people could fit nicely; however they expect
2 Samoan sized people to fit! This usually means that the person in the aisle
seat is basically just squatting and holding onto the seat in front of them
while the bus zooms at the island-wide speed limit of 25 mph over HUGE potholes
and around dogs, chickens, children, and around the crazy switchback curves of
the island coast, literally feet from the Pacific Ocean. Bus drivers don’t
always stop picking people up once the seats are full. There is a distinct
seating hierarchy. Men move the back to make room for women, and the young move
to the back to make from for the old. Once a bus is “full” kids move onto an
adult’s lap. Once that has happened, teenagers move to each other’s laps.
Finally new riders stand in the aisles. Sometimes bus drivers choose to drive
right by high school students (you can tell because they wear their school's
uniform) because people under 18 only have to pay a quarter, and the drivers would
rather take adults who pay about a dollar, depending on how far they are going
(though we still haven't really figured out the rates.... we just always give a
dollar. Sometimes it should be less and sometimes it should be more, but very
few buses have their fares marked and those that do never make sense. I try to always have dollar bills because if
I give them a 5 dollar bill and expect change, they sometimes only give me $3
back).
Thankfully, there are many
Leone buses so we usually don't have too much trouble catching a bus. If we lived any further west, however, we
would need to take the Amanave buses (of which there are only 2). So at the end
of the day, you see the Amanave bus pass and everyone from beyond Leone the
whole way up to Amanave has to fit on that bus, or take a Leone bus to Leone
and hitch a ride further through ATL (the Amanave To Leone crew).
Another thing to consider
in your bus ride is what time the tuna factory workers get out. After a whole day canning tuna, their clothes
have a pretty bad stench to them, so one tries to get on a bus back before the
shift change in the afternoon. Otherwise, you will have a smelly bus ride and
be sticking your head out the window like a dog to get some fresh air.
Aiga buses are famous for
blaring Samoan music or home-remixed mashups as they drive around. Rocking out
with reggae-style music with the wind in your face can make for a great
de-stressor, and it is only a $1 to ride!
Once you get past Nu'uuli the rest of the road is right on the
water-which is so clear you can even see sea turtles swimming from the
bus! Sometimes we just get on a bus on a
really hot day just to cool down. It's one dollar for some time with all
natural air conditioning.
