Waiting at the Stop

Lately I seem to have developed a knack for missing the bus. Not that there are really set times for the bus to arrive - as far as we know - but I always seem to be just coming through the "Kang Xing Yuan" entrance archway as the bus arrives at the other side of the road. It's too far, and too dangerous, to run to catch it, and yelling - even if I knew the right words! - would be useless. It's usually about 20 minutes or so between buses, but sometimes we get lucky and one bus catches up to another so it may only be ten minutes. Of course it works the other way too, and recently I have had to wait up to 45minutes.

Twenty minutes is a long time to stand on one spot. Especially as the temperature this week has been dropping below zero, and there has been a bitterly cold wind roaring down Jian Kang Lu. It was enough to get me into my quilted, padded (duck-down), hooded, full-length red coat that I had specially made for me in Zhengzhou last year.

(This picture was taken in Zhengzhou last year the day I got the coat.)

The red seems to be an unfortunate choice of colour, although the Chinese may consider it "lucky". I had been feeling a bit down at the time, and knowing that bright colours can help to lift the flagging spirit, I decided to be bold. Due to my more than Chinese (ample) girth, I have regretted that decision many times, especially when the playful young ladies at work here call me "big red..."

My classes at the moment are spaced out such that I need to go in to the office and back twice in a day - unless I want to wander round town in the freezing wind, or sit around the office for hours at a time in between.

So, twice a day I have stood and glowed like a big red beacon on Jian Kang Lu for up to 45 minutes at a time ... stamping my feet and doing a little bit of a dance just to keep the blood flowing. Basically making a spectacle of myself, I suppose. Brightening the lives of the little men who are fixing the road.

The wall and the pavement are gone now.

The sidewalk by the bus-stop has always been treacherous. There is a new (unfinished) block of apartments just there, with a wall to protect pedestrians from the machinery and work around the flats. So this week the wall was finally knocked down, and the uneven pavers ripped up to lay a new sidewalk. In the meantime, us unfortunate people waiting for a bus are left stamping our feet and doing our little dance out on the road-way, among the bikes, motorbikes, and side-walk workmen with their barrows and dumpster-trucks full of bricks and sand.

So the workmen and I have got to know each other a little. So much so that yesterday as Peter and I went down to wait for a bus together I was met with a broad grin by the little fellow with the barrow. He's a likeable little chap - really quite short of stature - with only one eye. Because of this limitation he walks with a side-to-side wagging of his head, very similar to some cartoon characters. As I waited for buses he went back and forth and back and forth with his little barrow, carrying pavers from over there where they had been dropped off the truck to over here where the men were at work laying them. Each time he went by me with a pleasant half-smile and a bit of a stare, and I guess I stared back as I paused in my little feet-warming stomp.

The other men were not so memorable, though I have had lots of time to observe their paver-laying techniques. Having had a go at laying brick-pavers when we built our house in West Oz, I was quite impressed with the relaxed way they were getting on with the job. Despite having string-lines to guide, they seemed quite unconcerned about obvious but slight irregularities - until their supervisor, in his smart (clean) overcoat, showed up. He didn't get his hands even the tiniest bit dirty, but he did a lot of waving and pointing and picking up of the rubber-mallet to demonstrate the proper method, all the time speaking to them quietly and gently. It seemed obvious that he was speaking from his own experience.

One young man was driving a little dumpster-truck back and forth. This incredibly low-geared, slow-moving vehicle was obviously a big step up from the chaps who were pushing their barrows by hand. Although it could carry several barrow-loads at a go, it's speed was less than the walking pace of a barrow man. So this young man was showing off a little, laying back in his seat with his foot up on the dash and his hands behind his head, just letting his machine trundle slowly past as he had a good long stare and a bit of a leer at me. He was so busy watching my foot-stomping and my red coat that he didn't notice his truck had taken a bit of a turn and slowly went off-course, trapping a man with a flat-tyred barrow between his truck and the freshly-laid kerb edge, unable to hear the warning shouts above his engine noise. He then tried to back up, but by then the barrow had jammed under the vehicle and between the front and back wheels.

I was beginning to think that the number 40 bus I had missed might be the last bus ever to stop at this place - maybe there was one of those unreadable (to me) Chinese notices somewhere about - when another lady came and joined me. A moment later a number 3 bus came down the road headed for it's terminus about 100 metres away round the corner. She took off and ran around the corner to meet it as it began it's return trip. Unfortunately that bus wasn't going where I needed to go. And anyway, surely my bus would be coming soon ...