As far as adjustment to a new culture goes, I feel as if I have done well thus far. I enjoy the food, have friends in my town, am able to converse with the locals and am not making too many mistakes to offend people, at least that I am aware of anyways. I am enjoying Guatemalan culture and adjusting to the slower pace of life. When I say slower pace of life, I am referring to literally everything moving slower. People, traffic, meetings, all of it. There have been a few occasions in which the slow pace really presented itself to me in all of its glory. In Guatemala there is a phrase, La Hora Chapina, literally meaning, the Guatemalan hour. It basically means that there is real time and there is Guatemalan time. Needless to say, la hora chapina tends to lag a bit behind real time. This has become painfully obvious to me, if I was not fully aware of it before.
For the past few weeks, I have been trying to get water delivered to my home, as opposed to riding in the back of a pickup for 45 minutes, buying 5 gallons, riding back in the pickup to my town and then lugging the jug of water up the hill to my house. The water company here, Salvavidas, has a truck that goes through my town so I have been talking with them to coordinate a time for the delivery. After a few conversations, I finally got a call this week from a guy in a truck, saying he would be in my town around 730 pm and what is my address. This question caused some difficulty, as I do not have a proper address. After trying to describe where I live, he said that I could wait by the road around 730 and he would stop when he saw me. So, 730 rolls around, I stand there for about 45 minutes in the pitch black with an empty water jug and no one shows. I try calling him a couple times and still nothing. So, I head back up the hill to my house, waterless and a bit frustrated. It is getting close, if not past, my usual bedtime and although I want water, I also desire sleep. I decide that I will hang out in my yard, watching the traffic below to see if he comes by for another 15 minutes. 15 minutes is about up when I hear a truck, look down and there he is, driving past my house no less than an hour after he said he would. I call, he answers, with ranchero music in the background at about 150 decibels. I tell him I just saw him drive by, if he stops now, I can be there in a minute. He tells me he will wait for me in town, just a bit up the road. I grab my jug, head up and exchange it for a full one, price 15q, about two bucks. Of course there is no sorry for running late or anything like that, it is pretty much expected that one will be later than one says. He tells me for the future he will call when he is near my house and we can take care of our business. He also gave me a free calendar, which really made it all worth it.
