Maras Showdown with Government, etc.

This is a quick life update for my non-mathy friends:

El Salvador is crazy. I am mad that the maras decided that they could shut down the entire public bus system as a fist-waving gesture to the government. Some of you might remember that back in June, as part of their extortion schemes, the maras burned down a bus with over a dozen people trapped inside. The outrage continues, when they issued a threat (via pamphlets and other things) earlier this week to do more of the same. So, in response, the entire country's bus system was shut down 2 days ago.

As usual, this doesn't impact the well-to-do, who travel in private vehicles. It only impacts the poor Salvadoreans who now have to get up early in the morning and walk hours across various towns to get to work, or to take camiones if those can be found. It sounds like as of yesterday, parts of the transportation system have resumed operations, but the system continued to be affected today.

What a ridiculous situation! Supposedly the reason for this wave of mara threats is a retaliation / protest against a newly passed bill outlawing Salvadoreans from joining a gang. Well, it looks to me like the mara are playing Quien tiene mas grande huevos with the government, and they're not doing so badly in this contest. I was talking to Geoff about this, and I was saying that in the States, those gang threats would have been SQUASHED by the government. He reminded me that this situation would never have even occurred, because the gangs simply don't have the same power over there. What a different world it is that we live in. :(

------------

In brighter news, Geoff and I finally got our car back! Yay. We might have to send it away again soon, to fix the shocks. Who knew that there were 4 sets of shocks in a car?? I don't like the sound of that. We need to go back to driving Flintstone cars.

But, having a car allowed us to go back to our salsa class last night. SUPER FUN!!! :) :) We did some closed-eyes dancing, which is always incredible, because you have to rely on the raw connection you have with your partner in order to follow their lead. It made me miss swing dancing like crazy.

------------

By the way, our first progress reports are due tomorrow. Time in school is flying by!! Time to finish grading those quizzes...