John and Julie Meyers Serving in Bolivia with New Tribes Mission As most of you know, we’ve been asked to use public transportation in order to better understand Bolivian culture and how the majority of Bolivians live. We wanted to share 2 methods of transportation to which we’ve become accustomed.
First…the Micro (pronounced mee-croh)
The Micro is a medium sized bus that is generally brightly colored with red, white, and blue. Each has a letter on the front. Each letter stands for a different route. We generally use the micro “S” which comes about 1 block from our house and can take us “downtown” or any number of places that we generally visit during the week. There are no scheduled stops. To get on, you stand somewhere along the route and flag the driver. To get off, you simply say, “At the corner, please” or “I’m going to get off, please”. Most times, we take this bus to the main road (the avenida) and connect with a trufi (true-fee…look for definition in the next post). Sometimes the micros will be rather empty and other times, we find ourselves packed in like sardines. It usually depends on the time of day. Hope this gives you a little more insight as to our daily life.
