Culture Clash (or crash)

Obviously I have been in Colombia long enough to learn about, accept, and adapt to cultural differences. But that is not to say that there still aren't some Colombian 'ways' that either irk me to the point of constant frustration or just don't make enough sense for me to follow them.

The biggest and baddest of these is Colombian time. When making any plans involving a schedule I have learned to add thirty minutes to any denomination of time under 2 hours or 30% for anything over. This includes meetings with professors. Bus trip arrivals. Estimated travel time by any mode of transportation. How long it will take food to be prepared. Etcetera.

Examples: 1) When my research partner tells me she will pick me up at 6:30 am on the steps to the Metro so we can arrive at the clinic for our interview scheduled at 7, what she REALLY means is that she will pick me up at 7 after I have fallen back asleep and we will arrive at the interview at 7:20.
2) When I get on a bus and the driver tells me it will only take 6 hours to cross over the mountains, what he REALLY means is that it will take 4 hours to reach the mountains, 1 hour to stop and eat lunch, then 3 more hours to wind through the roads toward our destination.
3) When I ask multiple friends how long it will take to walk from one university campus to another they tell me "Oh it is really short and shouldn't take you longer than 15 minuts," what they REALLY mean is that they have no idea how long it would take because nobody walks that route, but 15 minutes sounds like a good, round number.
4) And, when I stop in at someone's house to drop something off and they offer me a meal saying it is already prepared, what they REALLY mean is that they have to go out and raise the cow, plant some rice, wait for it all to grow, then kill/harvest all ingredients before even starting to cook.

Being as it is that my anthropological training has instilled in me a duty to cultural relativity, (ie: just because people in the US are usually uptight about their schedules and don't keep you waiting for hours doesn't mean that Colombians are useless), it is hard to be continually forgiving when people are flaky and thus constantly throw wrenches into MY hectic daily schedules. I have learned to enjoy sitting around drinking a soda and doing nothing for hours just to kill unanticipated free time, but only when I have no other engagement filling my dance card. It causes me to be far less productive than I would like.

Despite the unreliablility of other people, paisas have a relatively grueling work ethic and I will admit that they accompish a lot during their long days. (Perhaps their extended labor hours--including half days on Saturday--are just to make up for all the time lost waiting). I wish I could say the same for the rest of the country, a lack of work ethic lending to the slow completion of national projects, but unfortunately much of the country suffers from commitmentphobia. Even some of the doctors and nurses complain about the fluidity of appointment dates and times; patients coming in hours or days late expecting to be treated. Imagine what could be accomplished if people could just arrive to anything on time...

After marveling at how tardiness does not seem to cause the same ire in anyone else here but me, I have come to comclude that people just don't have the same sense of time. Two hours isn't REALLY that important in the large scheme of things, so having that much more time to sit around and talk with family or friends, even random people in a cafe, is not going to have an effect on your life in the long-run. On the contrary, because relationships are so important in Latin American culture, having an excuse (however lame) to spend two extra hours with loved ones is the best use of time possible.

Perhaps then it is me who has my priorities reversed. Instead of worrying about not having enough time to finish my work and studies, I should be concerned that I am not dedicating enough of my working hours to the people I care about.