Chicken buses and Jesus. Yes, there is a link. An obvi­ous one, even to an athe­ist like me.

Most Guatemalans are catholic, and even if the Mayas incor­po­rated some ani­mist and shaman­ist ele­ments that the Vat­i­can may or may not frown upon if it still cares, chances are you will notice an amaz­ing num­ber of churches and quite a few peo­ple named “Jesús”. Reli­gion seems to be a huge part of folks’ life and it’s every­where. Even as an atheist—or maybe because of it—I was struck how “alive” beliefs are.

Here, reli­gion isn’t a pas­time for old con­ser­v­a­tive folks in remote vil­lages like it is rumoured to be in France, for instance. While it’s hard to say whether peo­ple actu­ally believe and where to draw the line between cul­tural upbring­ing and per­sonal beliefs, reli­gion is a fact of life. Churches are burst­ing with activ­ity and evan­ge­list mis­sions gained ground. The mass isn’t only cel­e­brated on Sun­day. You can hear peo­ple chant­ing and wit­ness other pray­ing pretty much every day of the week.

Reli­gion also influ­ences people’s life. For instance, I noted quite a few posters against abor­tion, in the name of God of course. While it is no doubt a very dif­fi­cult deci­sion to make, I’m pro-choice and I would rather let peo­ple decide what’s best for them. Just saying…

So, where is God? Well, in churches, for once. Mas­sive brand new churches, dilap­i­dated ones that are still stand­ing, houses or schools con­verted into prayer rooms at night… mi casa es su casa—God took that pretty lit­er­ally in Latin America.

God is also a pas­sen­ger on every sin­gle bus, tuk tuk or minibus trav­el­ing in the country.

I don’t know much about reli­gion or Roman Catholi­cism, but I’m pretty sure I heard some­thing about “thou shall not call my name in vain.” Well, it obvi­ously didn’t trans­late well into Span­ish because “Dio” has to be the most overused word around here.

And that brings me to chicken buses. When they are shipped from North Amer­ica, they are these safe bright yel­low buses that rarely go over 40 km per hour. In no time, they are cus­tomized and taught to take sharp turns at ungodly speed. When it comes to cus­tomiz­ing, any­thing goes and the brighter the colours the bet­ter. Some chicken buses, aka camione­tas, still have their U.S. license plate at the back, with the Guatemalan one besides.

On the wind­shield or on the back of the seats, you can read inspired sen­tences such as “Son­rie, Jesús te ama” (“Smile, Jesus loves you); “Dio bendiga este bus” (“God blesses this bus”) or “Jesus guia mi camino” (“Jesus leads me”).

I have this the­ory that the cra­zier the dri­ver, the more “feel good” reli­gious stick­ers and inscrip­tions the bus will have. And trust me, when said dri­ver nego­ti­ates yet another sharp turn in a nar­row moun­tain road, even an athe­ist like me is pretty happy to know that “God blesses this bus.”

Funny enough, these reli­gious sen­tences are often framed by Play­boy pin­ups decals and other pop cul­ture stick­ers. I guess here, God doesn’t mind the company.

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Chicken Bus in Antigua

Tuk Tuk in Chichi

Chicken Bus in Antigua

U.S License Plate on Chicken Bus

Car­toonosh License Plate

Chicken Bus Portrait

Vol­cán Agua and Chicken Bus Park­ing Lot

Related arti­cles:

1. In The Chicken Bus
2. Antigua, Guatemala
3. San Igna­cio and a Day of Chicken Buses
4. Faces of Antigua
5. El Lago de Atitlán