combi hustlers

Public transportation in Lima is comprised of a system of jitneys. Cheap, convenient, flexible, fast, polluted, polluting, they're called combis (combi singular).

There is a driver who navigates the tangle of traffic and a "hustler" who ushers passengers on and off the buses.

It is the job of the hustler to hang out precariously from the doorway of the bus and call out the routes. Most of the time, the man makes his announcements and the bus drives on.

Every now and then (not all of the time, but frequent enough to prompt me to author a post about this), the hustler will look you in the eye, beckon you with energetic hand motions, and implore you to board the bus. Whether your destinations are congruent is academic.

It's as if you were strolling past 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City and an airport shuttle to JFK slowed down and the driver begged you to hop on board. "Come on. JFK. JFK! That's right, we're going to JFK and you should, too. You know you want to go there. It's JFK."

I always feel a twinge of guilt when I shake my head "no." I don't know why, but I feel like I'm letting them down somehow.