If you’re not in Panama at the moment then you might not know what happened yesterday so I’m going to do a quick recap; I apologize beforehand for not mentioning this sooner but I’m going through the motions and was not going to post today anyway but I found an angle that pushed me into speaking out. Yesterday a public transport bus caught fire and killed 18 people… men, women and children. The cause of the fire? There’s still no official word from the police, but the zeitgeist is that it was an overload in the bus’ electrical system that was set off and cause a short circuit that resulted in the crazy fire. This was at around 2PM; I’m on vacations and due to that and other reasons I might or might not have discussed here I’m on a path of drunken self destruction so my “Summer of George” allows me to wake up in the afternoon a lot more often these past few weeks. Anyway, I turn on the idiot box looking for cartoons when I notice that all of the national channels have a bus on fire, not unlike the buses you see in the Palestine-Israel conflict and we hear every other day. The only difference here was that the bus was on a street I take every morning to go to the office… I stayed and watched. All afternoon, I watched.

The fire started in the front, on the motor. Apparently, the driver stopped in the middle of the street (to him it was “the bus stop,” I’m sure) When he opened the lid to see what the hell was causing all the smoke that was getting inside the bus from the ventilation system I suppose that the outside air was all the fire and fumes leaking from the machinery needed in order to catch on fire and cause the tragedy. People panicked; the bus was full so they all tried going to the front door… but it was jammed. Naturally, they then proceeded to go to the back where the emergency exit door should be… but of course, nothing was there. Initial reports said that what the bus had were emergency window exits you had to break in order to get out… there are many other individual stories, but one I want you to remember is the one of the 270lb lady and her 80lb 6 year old girl; the fire spread quickly through the ventilation system so there wasn’t much time… people were helping each other get out but when there’s only a few windows opened up it’s a little difficult… the lady threw her daughter out of the bus and nothing happened to her outside of some bumps and cuts, but the lady, while trying to get out of the window, got stuck; the little girl had to see her mom be burned alive.

So, what caused the short circuit?

The electrical system was feeding juice to the air conditioning system, a radio transmitter, a 14-inch TV, a dvd player, and a sound system.

Not only was this bus packed to the gills with pointless home theater equipment, but apparently it was one of 4 buses that were rejected in various other countries under the label of them being “UNSAFE.” They didn’t have an exit door in the back, but an emergency hatch on the roof… one that, as I found out but 20 minutes ago, the drivers have locked since according to them the passengers would otherwise push it open and mess it up. Speaking of drivers, this particular sir has 92 transit violation tickets under his belt, amounting to over $20,000. He has no paid for them. On top of that, he has 12 collisions while using his public transport license. Twelve. I must’ve waited all afternoon for the leader of the transit authority to show up and see with what sort of nerve he’s come up to actually go to the site and be able to deflect the obvious blame that’s coming to him and his organization. Of course, in the end the sir would throw the blame around to the users, the private owners of the buses, the government, and everyone else but themselves. This sir deserves to die a horrible death.

It sickens me how negligent a Panamanian can be when he puts his mind into it. Don’t get me wrong; most of us are great people but when we can be negligent, we take the gold medal… I can apply it to my life right now like this: I’m being neglected while at the same time I’m neglecting someone else. No one here deserves it, but it’s the way it is. This asshole, this sir who had the nerve to show his face and dare blame this tragedy on everyone but his organization, would dodge giving straight answers from an angry press, hungry for answers. 18 people dead because the public transport authority, the private owners of the buses and the and driver himself are greedy, money-hungry wolves. The government has been pushing a project to modernize the public transport system for months, one that would give us, the people, a brand new fleet full of extras and commodities, an exclusive lane for said fleet, scheduled departure/arrival times, no crazy noise and other distractions and strict laws for vandalizing the buses. On top of that, the proper training so that we have law-abiding drivers that put the passenger’s safety first… all of this, and the public transit people are complaining. They don’t want it, because they think that the current system is just fine… it’s “just fine?” IT’S “JUST FINE?!” IT’S “JUST FINE??!?!?” People are still burning on the windows right next to his tugboat ass and he’s saying that the current transport system is JUST FINE!? People are scared of the buses here. Hell, people are scared to cross the street here… cars don’t respect the crossing lines. People get run over left and right, while buses do races from pit stop to pit stop no matter how many people are riding them, praying to get home in one piece, and on top of that they want to increase the transport toll so that they can give us a better service? Asshole, tell me a God damn story. The only “better service” that will suffice is a complete reformatting of the system… I wish I could jump into a bus without having to worry about what technique I should jump out of the bus when I’m getting to my stop (50% of the time they don’t stop if it’s only one passenger getting off… they just slow down), or without worrying about getting mugged or stabbed. I wish I could jump in a cab without thinking that I can’t speak in English because I’ll either get mugged or overcharged (at least I’m not a girl… they get it worse) and I wish I didn’t live in a country where Social Security is killing people when public transport isn’t, nobody cares about what the government is doing with their money and resources, and where I have to take shit for approaching things differently.

I’m totally guilty of this in some respects: Panamanians take a lot of stuff for granted. They see something good in front of them and they don’t cherish it. Instead they throw it away or let it die. Then they ask themselves “what if?” and that’s where they complain without really knowing why. Panamanians sometimes are so into their own bubbles, looking after themselves powered by the “me-first” culture that’s embedded into us that we don’t realize who we run over along the way, a lot of the time because of said negligence. I hate it. I despise it. If there’s something I hate it’s to not be heard. I hate feeling like my voice doesn’t count, and you should feel the same way, too. How do you fight negligence, though? How loud can you scream until the person you want them to listen to you finally takes notice and pays attention? How far does someone have to go?

Now the police are hard at work to take faulty buses out of the road and what do the unions do? They go on strike, putting the buses across the streets so they cause a God damn traffic jam. They are seriously angry that they’re taking them off the road. FUCKING ASSHOLES. It’s their fucking fault for having old tires, no basic equipment and other types of shittiness that make these idiots deserve their fate. They are seriously upset because they were taken off the road… because their buses are crap. THEY’RE CRAP. Now… the good thing about this is that the faulty buses, once out of the road, will make traffic a fucking breeze. Look, I don’t know… I’m obviously upset at the principle of the whole thing, so I’m going to continue my “Summer of George” and get hammered. Got a friend’s birthday today; being negligent and being the recipient of negligence is a theme today I’m going to get rid of with the help of vodka… and for the life of me, tonight I don’t want anything to do with anyone.

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