The Mexican Manual Microbus

Seatbelts? We don't need no stinking seatbelts.

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“Fucker came out of nowhere!” I yelled amongst the screams coming from the back of the rickety old Volkswagen Microbus I was piloting down a dark and lonely road through rural Mexico.

“What?! What did you hit?” more than one person yelled. I’m gonna make you wait for a moment to learn what I hit, cuz building tension type shit.

In the summer of 1994, I was twenty-six years old and about to begin a master’s degree in history. There was a lot of competition to get accepted, with over 300 applicants for a mere nineteen openings. I sucked up to the right professor, and he went to bat for me. We had to do a bit of finagling to get me accepted, as my grades were good, but not as good as many of the other applicants. I needed to do something to show I was committed, because grades were not always the best indication of who would finish the program. Case in point: Only nine of the nineteen successfully defended.

My acceptance to the program was conditional upon a six-week trip to Mexico. So hardship, much disgruntled.

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