Time

One of first things they told us about when we arrived in Panama was that everyone here is on “Panamanian Time”, a.k.a., time is not very important here. In the U.S., we live by the clock. We got to work and school at certain times and don’t like to be late, we don’t like to wait in long lines at the store, we get impatient waiting for our food at restaurants, etc. However, it’s the opposite way here. It’s not a big deal if you’re late for meetings or work, people don’t get mad when they have to wait in a line at the store, and one of the biggest differences for me has been that restaurants are not in a hurry to wait on you.

Our second night here, a group of us went out to eat at a restaurant right down the street from our hotel. This was my first time experiencing restaurants in a foreign country, so naturally, I figured things would be similar to restaurants in the U.S. I quickly found out this was not the case. It took us about an hour and a half to get our food and eat at a place that would have taken closer to thirty minutes in the states. If something like that happened back home, this place would have hundreds of terrible yelp reviews, but they don’t think much about it here.

I remember going out with my grandpa a few years ago, who is the typical U.S. American, and gets upset when people don’t do things right when he asks them. Instead of bringing him a refill like he asked, our waiter went over to the bar and started talking to someone, which is similar to what happened in the Panamanian restaurant. My grandfather got impatient, and decided to whistle to get the waiter’s attention, and the whole place went dead silent. This is one of the reasons I think being on Panamanian time might not be such a bad thing. It’s taxing sometimes to live by the clock, and have a set time you have to do everything. However, it can also be helpful when you’re making plans, and I do think it helps motivate people to get things done. Either way, being on Panamanian time is something I haven’t gotten used to yet.