Ruark Vallen Tapel
Jul 25, 2017 · 4 min read

The Bus Ride to Divinopolis

View from the Bus window, sunrise near Divinopolis

The busy shuffling and the increasing noise started right at the end of the closing prayer, and a second later the double door bursted open as people carrying all their bags and other stuff filed out in hurried steps towards the other end of the room where the locale of Sao Paolo’s sole exit and entrance laid in wait. Behind the exit double door is the chilly Sao Paolo midnight at 18 degrees Celsius; just the other night the evening was said to have been a hot 27 degrees making it hard to sleep through the night. I watched the people hurrying past, myself unsure what to do whether I should follow or keep still.

“Labas na din kayo para makapili kayo ng mauupuan sa bus” Bro Ceron’s voice snapped me back from the usual depth of my thoughts and just in time answered one of my current question.

I’m a Filipino who’s staying here in Brasil for just a few days, and the people I’ve been silently observing are my brethren this side of the globe. It’s a thousand miles from home, yet being here still feels perfectly like home. As a Christian inside the Members Church of God International, you’d get to have a lot of homes in different parts of the globe, and get to have thousands of brethren you feel like friends you’ve known long ago but have just met again after many years. You feel at eased, you feel at home; brothers and sisters through the same spiritual blood and bound by the all the good works from the Bible we’ve all been taught together twice a week. And these we follow and practice unto all our fellowmen and most especially to our selves, our brethren.

I stepped out the double doors and into the midnight chill, carrying a backpack, a sling bag and a silver luggage in tow. These are everything I’ve carried with me into brasil. It’s imperative I carry it with me now as I’ll be running straight to the airport once this bus we’ll be boarding on returns to Sao Paolo after a 7 hour ride from Divinopolis, and that is where we’ll be heading to in a few moments.

My luggage stowed under the bus, everyone loaded and are in their seats, the driver just about to finish double checking his passenger list with our identification documents and I sat there feeling the excitement growing from the anticipation of the trip to Divinopolis. My seatmate is a little guy named Carlmagen or something, I don’t know how it’s spelled. Lol.

“Bisita yan katabi mo, hindi pa siya kaanib” Bro Tony has climbed up the bus to check on us.

“Aah kaya po pala tahimik”.

A few minutes later, Carl my seatmate is up walking about with a pack of candy from his bag, giving them to everyone from the driver to the last brethren at the back of the bus. Seems a nice guy. :) I pray he continues and gets baptised. He’s mostly asleep the rest of the travel.

We started off at 3 in the morning, right after our Thanksgiving. I set my wristwatch to stopwatch mode and set it running as we started our trip. Everyone is tired and sleepy and we dozed off into the uneventful ride.

I awoke 2 hours later just as the bus came into a halt. We were at our first stop at the Bastella for those who need the toilet or to eat. I took it as my time to look for food and stuff I can bring back to Singapore. Having brought a few, I retired back into the bus and dozed off.

It would be interesting to note that before I exited Bastella and set of for the bus, I eyed a glimpse of a candy named Paçoquita, it’s peanut butter polvoron-like candy and it tastes awesome, but I didn’t manage to buy any and thought that I’ll just keep it in mind to buy those when we get back to the same stop on our way home from Divinopolis.

I’m a light sleeper, thus I woke at around before 6 am. Outside the window on my right was the faint clue of where the sun will be rising, a patch of clouds that was lighter than all the others in the shape of a triangle. I watched outside the window as the scene slowly unfurled itself amidst the grassy hills… to be continued

    Written by

    I just want to share thoughts, ideas, experiences and learn.

    Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
    Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
    Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade