Living with the Peruvian Concept of Time
I arrived in Urubamba, Peru expecting to immediately work with our partnered NGO, ProPeru, in installing and explaining water filters to people living in rural pueblos. Between the sixteen of us embarking on this Duke Engage experience, I never expected to completely eradicate water-dwelling parasites in a town, but I did expect to remain relatively busy at least attempting to do so. Living in the fast paced culture of the United States, one in which people drive, talk on a cell phone, change radio stations, and eat all at once in an effort to crunch time, I am used to having a variety of goals which I wish to accomplish daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
The Peruvian concept of time though, greatly differs from the one found in the U.S and translates into spending more time to do less. The phrase of “time is money” definitely does not apply here as it is not unordinary for a person to arrive an hour late to a meeting (or not show up at all). Time here also has greater importance in relation to people, with most shops, offices, and schools closing midday and reopening late afternoon so that people can return home and have family lunches. It’s also customary to not only stop and greet a friend/acquaintance on the street, but to have a decent conversation with them, regardless of how late you may be running to work or the amount of things you need to accomplish in those next thirty minutes.
As you may imagine, this concept of time, which devalues the amount/length of work, can be very frustrating, especially for a person like me, who mentally budgets out time for tasks during the day and expects to accomplish those tasks within a given time frame. For those of us involved in the health aspect of this Duke Engage project, our normal working hours fall between 9am and 1pm, giving us only four hours a day. This may be an acceptable amount of time if only the ProPeru staff had not acclimated fully to the Peruvian concept of time. It has been frustrating to come into the office and read journal articles about the filters we will (hopefully) install, or watch presentations concerning water quality in the area when we could have reviewed and learned this information prior to our arrival. Our group came to Peru expecting to work and wanting to help others, but so far it seems like most of our time has been spent in preparation of what is yet to come. Those in the Duke group which build stoves with working chimneys in towns where they still cook with an open flame in their kitchen always return home late, usually after seven hours of work, due to a culture of tardiness which seems to thrive here. As already mentioned, time spent in community/companionship with one another is given great importance, but I have still not fully acclimated to this cultural belief. During a “mini” project Saturday, which was to finish by 1pm, our group was required to stay longer after being offered a lunch by the community in thanks for working on the school. Many of us had made plans for what was to be a free afternoon, but found it necessary to accommodate our hosts´ request, wait for a lunch that was never to come, and completely disregard our plans in an effort to follow cultural norms.
This slower, differently valued Peruvian time system has definitely been the source of much frustration during my first 11 days here, but slowly I am trying to accept this new concept. I definitely do see the value of spending more time with friends and family, then focusing on my own goals or expectations for the next 7 weeks, but the difficulty of doing so is great. On the upside, I have much more time to reflect on my experiences here. I have taken an entire 11 days before writing my first blog post.