Camden vs. The Marshutni

actual photo of me waiting for the bus

I’ve always considered myself to be a very competent public transportation rider. Having lived in Seattle, New York, Copenhagen, and DC and successfully navigated the bus and metro systems in each, I was very confident that I’d conquer the Armenian system in no time. But this weekend, I learned that it is going to take some more time to consider myself a pro-bus rider here.

I’ll back up a bit to my first battle with the bus system. A few weeks ago, I was invited to watch a friend give a presentation at the American Corner in a town about a 30-minute drive north. I saw online that there was a minibus, often referred to here by the Russian word Marshutka or Marshutni, leaving my town a few hours before the presentation and another heading back a bit after. That morning I stood at the bus stop waiting for nearly an hour and a half with no sighting of the bus before finally giving up and deciding to take a taxi (which cost 10x the bus fare). After the presentation, I rushed to the bus stop and was relieved to see the bus I needed pulling in right as I arrived. But to my shock, the bus did not stop and just rolled right past me and continued along the road. I would end up missing one more bus until finally getting one home later that evening. I discovered later that my troubles had resulted from the fact that the app I was using had been showing the wrong times for this particular bus and I was looking at the schedule for the opposite direction and vice versa. With this knowledge, I was able to successfully navigate back to the American Corner the following week using the Marshutni (while I had been waiting for the buses, I struck up a conversation with the coordinator for the American Corner and was invited back to give my own presentation, so maybe it was for the best).

After this experience, I was hyperaware of the difficulties of navigating the Marshutnis here but was still fairly confident in my abilities. Today, I had plans to meet a group of other volunteers at Lake Sevan and have a day on the lake together. The volunteers who live in the northern region all rented a van together. Since I live considerably further south than most other volunteers, I opted to travel on my own via the Marshutni. I relied on my navigation app again to identify a few options that would stop at a bus station just outside my town on the way to Sevan from Yerevan. The first leg of my journey went fine. I took my normal bus toward Yerevan but got out just on the outskirts of my town and found my way to the small roadside bus station. One of the Marshutnis was scheduled to arrive around 9:30, which was plan A. There were 2 other buses coming at 10 and then at 10:30 am which were my backup options. As I had feared, the first bus never showed. This is something that I had expected so I didn’t stress too much. I’d built in some buffer time to my travel plans precisely because I had discovered through experience that this was common.

So I waited until 10 a.m. An unmarked white bus pulled over towards the station. I was a bit hesitant to approach it because the buses I was used to taking all had their route numbers marked clearly. But I saw the woman next to me walk over to inquire so I followed her. As she was climbing in, I asked the driver where he was going and to my relief he said Sevan. I began to open the back door when the driver abruptly told me that there was no more space. He gestured to the woman ahead of me indicating that she had snagged the last seat. I was tempted to argue. I had seen many a Marshutnit much more tightly packed than this one often with people crouching between seats, but I decided not to. I waited until 10:30, still holding out hope that my plan C would come through. Another unmarked white bus swerved onto the shoulder in front of the station and I wasted no time in running up to the window to ask which bus it was. I asked this driver where he was going and again to my great relief he responded “Sevan”. But as I was asking him this, an older woman slid behind me and entered the bus, sitting just beside the driver. I began to climb in when the driver interrupted me and again told me that there was no space for me. I was in disbelief for a second. How had I lost out on the last open seat twice in a row? I hadn’t even finished closing the door when he started to drive away.

At this point, no other buses headed to Sevan were scheduled until mid-afternoon. Taxis were far too expensive and hitchhiking is strictly forbidden by the Peace Corps (for good reason). I felt like I was in that one episode of SpongeBob where he is trying to return to Bikini Bottom but every time he steps foot outside the bus stop, a bus speeds through and then leaves without him (that reference was specifically for you, Mom). As I considered my other options, which included going the opposite direction to Yerevan to try and catch one of these buses at the start of their routes or taking a different bus to a city 30 minutes south of Sevan and then paying for a taxi from there, I realized that any of these routes would take significantly longer and I would only be arriving at Lake Sevan a couple of hours before having to leave to catch the last bus home. As frustrating as it was to give up and head home, I reasoned with myself that it was far preferable to potentially getting stranded trying to come home from the lake. Considering the difficulty I was having going to Sevan, I did not feel very confident in taking my chances on the buses getting me home. So, I let my friends know that I was a no-go and hopped on the next bus back to my town.

I practiced in my head how to explain to my host family in Armenian why I was coming home so early. All I was able to say was “I waited for 2 hours and missed 2 buses so I came home”. My host father offered to drive me but it would have been a big inconvenience for him so I declined the kind offer. I retreated to my room to unpack my unused beach tote. As I started to change my clothes, I remembered I had been wearing my bathing suit under them and I felt extremely silly taking it off without having swum. My lovely host mother came into my room with a stack of pancakes. She told me in English “Don’t be sad, eat pancakes”. Honestly, I think they could sell that on a pillow at Target and millennial moms would eat it up. Her gesture made me feel a lot better because I had actually just been complaining to some friends from home about how much I was missing American breakfast food. I resolved to try and salvage the day by doing something I enjoyed. So I picked up my favorite snacks at the store and headed to the park to read in my hammock. When I came home from that, I worked a bit on an art project that I have started in an effort to make my room a little cheerier.

I’m definitely frustrated with myself for not planning out a more reliable route. I could have gone all the way to Yerevan to start with and gotten a bus from there, but I thought it was smarter to not go so far out of my way. I could have kept trying and found another route but I decided I didn’t want to spend any more time chasing buses and end up wasting the entire day. There are moments here that really remind me that I am in a completely new environment and have to relearn almost everything. Because of my site placement, I don’t have the luxury of having multiple other volunteers living in my same town. Without sitemates, I’ve had to really rely on myself for most things. So far I’ve been enjoying this and have been proud of myself for managing on my own. Today, however, I really felt that isolation. Especially as I was standing alone on the side of the road scanning every vehicle that passed and desperately hoping one would stop for me. I can’t help but wonder if my poor Armenian skills or my foreign appearance contributed to me losing out on a spot on two separate buses. I let myself feel this frustration and disappointment for a bit but then I thought back to a conversation I had with my host mom last week.

She was telling me about how a young American man came into her work and she had to try and communicate with him in English. She described the exasperation she felt when she knew what to say to him but not how to say it. I jokingly responded that that’s how I feel every day trying to speak Armenian. We both laughed but then her face turned serious. “Isn’t it so difficult for you though? Living so far from your family and learning this new language?” I told her that yes, of course it’s difficult but explained that part of the reason I chose to do Peace Corps in the first place was because I knew it would be difficult. There are lots of reasons that I chose to serve but one of the biggest was because I wanted a challenge. I felt like I needed the growth and perspective that would come with being challenged.

When I have really good days, when I get to visit cool places, or when my students make measurable progress, I think to myself “This is why you’re here.” But I am learning that when I have bad days, I also need to think to myself “This is why you’re here.” I am here to miss multiple buses in a row, to struggle with the language, to feel isolated and lonely, and to keep working to figure it out.