Fight about Goats

I had a lot of time for reflection on the bus ride back. This time the bus took 9 hours.

I've thought a lot about my family, my life, my beliefs, etc. Basically, things are pretty good.

On the ride back, two very nice teenage boys were conductors of the bus. One of them, Tanka, was wearing a "Leb Zeppelin" t-shirt and a "Che Gvara" bracelet; the other wore a psychedelic Buddha pendant in Rasta colors.

As usual, the bus was cramped. A fat woman sat next to me; she was continuously eating snacks wrapped in paper or plastic and she kept pushing me and leaning across me to throw her garbage out the window. I tried to have nice thoughts about her, or at least to suppress negative thoughts. Finally, at one stop she got off. "At last! leg room" I thought. But another man rudely pushed me back and sat in her spot. He wanted to be near his friend. I tried to have nice thoughts, but he was stinking really, really badly. I stood up, smiled and waited for him to give me room, and then went to the back of the bus, where I could find some space.

A few minutes later, a fight broke out. It was the stinking guy and his friend against the two conductor boys. It was about goats. The police had stopped us and asked for the permits for the goats on top of the bus. The stinking guys, goat-herders, didn't have the proper papers. Insults were exchanged and soon there was shoving, hitting and kicking.

Eventually Tanka and the other boy got on top of the bus and throw off the ten goats. Many passengers had come to their aid during their fight. I considered joining in but thought, "no, I'm on a Buddhist pilgrimage, I can't get into a fight!"