S.R.O.

In some parts of the world buses are still the most widely used transportation. In third world countries you often see people jam-packed even to the roof of buses just so they can get a ride to wherever they may be headed. Well S.R.O., as is often seen plainly on the windshield of these buses stands for Standing Room Only. If you weren't early enough or were really in a hurry to get to who knows where you may have to be standing for the rest if not the entire trip.

Imagine that it's only 9 am and the heat is barely tolerable already. You crowd into a bus full of people speaking multiple dialects you have no understanding of. The road conditions are bad to say the least and you wonder to yourself if the bus you are in is even capable of getting anywhere given the shabby shape it's in. It's dusty, it's humid, no indication of a decent rest room stop anywhere, not that you may be expecting a decent one, if any.Well, you get the picture. Welcome to the third world, my friend, as they say. You have only one thing in your mind and that is to just bear with it, hope that the bus doesn't break, and maybe get there in one piece. I don't know about you but it sounds like adventure to me.

Once in a while it's good to break from the norm, to immerse yourself into something totally different, to be in a culture oceans ways from yours. I am not saying you ought to take a vacation several times a year. What I am saying ids that we should constantly remind ourselves that there is a different world out there, and that you are not alone. For every worry you experience, for whatever reason you may be smiling or in tears for, there is a person out there feeling the same thing, going through the same emotions for the same reason as yours. we are not that different from each other. What makes you laugh and cry makes the rest of us pretty much do the same.

So don't forget, expand your horizons and know tat the only limits you may encounter are your own. Hop on that bus, get off the next village, secure clan drinking water, take tons of pictures, make new friends. Be your own ambassador. Life is too short. Standing Room Only or not, we gotta ride. Until our next post, folks. Take care.