Bailey
tiempo
I count each grain in the hourglass,
The finite seconds
Advancing like soldiers,
Confined by transparency.
But now I live
In a sandbox.
The mutable grains are
Now a turret, now a trench
And I must learn
To play.
I’ve always been known for my disciplined time-management. My room is never without a calendar, my daily commitments exploding off the page in color-coded Sharpie. I make to-do lists constantly, sometimes separating the days into hours, setting alarms and creating deadlines for myself to complete tasks. I like plans, and when I make plans with my compañeros, I expect that discussion to hold good until the moment of reckoning. I expect them to perceive the day as I do, each second assigned to a purpose. But they don’t. Colombian time is different. They may be an hour late, and arrive with none of the apologies and chagrin that I expect. They may call, proposing to do something totally different. Other times, they may not show up at all. When I lack a discernible plan, I become stressed. Agitated. Vindictive, even. I become filled with guilt at the thought of not being productive, of not using my time effectively. I become frustrated by the changes, the disappointment. However, after two weeks in Medellín, I’ve eased toward enjoying the amorphous nature of time in this place. The “rhythm of this city,” as Tam calls it, has forced me to confront my anxieties about time and relish spontaneous possibility.
Browne
I have no sense of direction. My soccer team nicknamed me Nemo because I always got lost driving to away games and arrived late. However, in Colombia, I am never the late one. Seven thirty means “five or so minutes past seven thirty” and noon means, “whenever you feel like it”. Even when meeting with my cogestora for work, she once arrived thirty minutes late. If roles had been reversed, I would have called her multiple times to let her know I was running late, apologized infinitely, and begged on my knees for forgiveness. She, however, called once, and that was that. Concepts of time change with cities, with cultures. I have experienced these changes before when living in other cultures, so I have learned the importance of understanding them. Understanding a concept of time will allow a better understanding of the culture, and also will prevent you from waiting nervously by yourself for thirty minutes in a metro station.
Elysia
Time is different here. I think the best way to explain it is that the city has a different rhythm, something I've heard several times already. Every place, and every person, has a different understanding of time. I've never really been good with time. At home in the U.S., at least where I'm from, time is a stricter concept, almost a rule to be followed. Appointments are set, you're expected to arrive on time, early even. If you're late to meet your friends, they will call you and text you (repeatedly), and when you finally arrive, they'll undoubtedly be somewhere between irritated to infuriated with you.
Here in Colombia, time is different. Meeting and appointment times can change (will change), multiple times even. Your friends might tell you to meet them in 30 minutes at this park, then call 20 minutes later to reschedule and change the meeting point. And if you happen to arrive late, they greet you the same way, with a friendly smile and hug and kiss on the cheek. It didn't take me long to get used to this concept of time here in Colombia, because it's something that I, personally, am more comfortable with. I like this sense of flexibility, this laidback outlook. And I think that it's important to acclimatize to this different relationship with time, just as you would with change of time zone or altitude. Time can be intrinsically linked to culture, and in Colombia, I think that to become part of the culture you must accept this new concept of time.
Jack
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| Paisa Pizza: Chorizo, sweet corn, cheese and guacamole |
My concept of time has changed most noticeably when I’m eating. (In juxtaposing this blog post with most of my other ones, it becomes apparent that food is the only thing I think about ever.) Meals here are enjoyed slowly. Two paced courses and a cafecita to wrap things up for 10mil pesos is what I’ve come to expect every lunch, and I love it. No pushy waiters trying to turn tables; no “here’s your check even though you never asked for it”; no angry people waiting for your table. Here, eating has felt like a more social experience. It’s less concentrated on getting in and getting out and more concentrated on enjoying your company, something we forget to do in the states too often.
Aside from eating, so-called “Paisa Time” has not been particularly difficult to adjust to. Fredy, the social worker I work with, is always punctual. The compañeros are usually at our meeting spot before we are. Everyone I've met has done all they can to make us as comfortable as possible, and I'm so thankful for all of them!
Kate
PASSING TIME WITH DIFFERENT VERBS
I pass some time today
sitting on the ocean
looking at watery reflections
and wiggling sensations
that might already be sliding away
reflecting on work in the field
with mi cogestora Luz
Luz passes the time with these families,
I have some time,
I have eight weeks of time to make videos, of stories,
I have eight weeks to make videos, of stories,
I am here to make videos, of stories,
I am here with time
learning not to spend it.
As we move into the mountains,
as we are received into homes,
as we sit with families,
Lucita moves with a patience and a stillness that at first felt “slow,”
to me,
protracted.
My nature is to do.
To fill my time tenaciously, persistently, stubbornly—perhaps
even redundantly as it comes to that—
doggedly, until I am dog-tired.
To fill my time in the bursts of a metronome that is always set for the Macarena.
Heyyyy Macarena do do dodo doo
Like the dialogue of one of Aaron Sorkin’s shows.
When he writes,
he thinks
of dialogue
as music.
He composes
scripts
to sing,
for their sound,
for their crescendo.
When he was nine
he saw, or rather heard,
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?
He didn’t get the story,
big-words, grown-up fights,
but he liked the music and the tempo.
He decided he wanted to recreate it.
One of his six rules of filmmaking is:
“It’s Less Important That The Audience Knows What Characters Are Talking About”
Scenes set in cramped minutes
or in the express moments of a co-worker dropping off a memo
“It’s Less Important That The Audience Knows What Characters Are Talking About”
They bustle, and hustle,
through hallways
exchanging words like floor-traders on Wall Street.
And I, the audience, so easily delightable,
am enraptured.
By the pace,
by the punching bass
by delicious electric haste
While my parents shake their heads
They boast more nuanced taste
for grace and harmonizing.
Would you turn that down?!
Why! What are they listening for… Isn’t this the music—
anyway?
Volume
To fill my ears like time, we fill time.
Filling— not to be confused for feeling.
Sorkin’s people are bustling, and hustling,
through hallways
exchanging words like floor-traders on Wall Street.
And I, America, so easily delightable,
am enraptured
By the likeness to
machines
clicking gears
and industry.
This big cabooming show
of productivity,
and progress.
I read once that American vacuums
are 60% louder than their foreign counterparts.
Some sly market researcher
found customer satisfaction
to be greater
with increased noise.
I’d believe it.
My business is to do
with time.
To catch and ride time like a surfer chasing a wave.
Focused
beach days
started in the morning, before the nappers
and their colorful umbrellas.
Ocean hours I prepared to bundle, and appraise
in retrospect.
A day lost or made by that perfect ride.
I like to catch and ride time like a surfer chases a wave.
It’s a profitable way to spend it.
[“It’s Less Important That The Audience Knows What Characters Are Talking About”]
But I don’t think Luz agrees
she massages time as it warms up
to revealing just “What Characters Are Talking About”
Because in this kind of storytelling
there’s no script
and it is important.
I’m spending my summer here
Except there’s no Spanish translation for spending time
I settle instead
for the verb
“pasar.”
Aqui, para pasar las horas en las olas.
I observe Lucita’s smoother pace
a good lesson, a good exercise for me.
An exercise in patience
And it’s a respectable way to spend the day.
Lucita moves with a patience and a stillness that at first felt “slow”
During our visits, I eye
this protracted time
this humility
and the way things come up.
When Luz is rolling time between her fingertips, as if it were liquid silver,
Un-uttered hardships, shelved out of mind, surface
I can see them swimming behind sturdy eyes
and sometimes I get to hear them.
Magnetic pain awoken as if Luz carried marbles in her pockets.
Desplazados
toughened, persistent.
I get the sense
Time and place, space, for unloading
personal concern and need,
are eyed somewhat-skeptically here
in these homes
perhaps.
But somehow I’m seeing vulnerability
and honesty and the type of strength that can only be seen when vulnerability gets revealed too—
the type of vulnerability mothers hide from their children.
This,
and tears, and soothing lies to children, and silent fierce entreaties
surface over tinto
when we’re on Luz’s time.
On a bad day for surfing
the still sea
seems to slip on, extending endlessly
uninterrupted in all directions
sometimes, when it’s lunch time in my barrio,
or with Luz,
I feel that time
for a second
extends forever in both directions
around me
forwards and backwards too.
I’m not skipping through time
but a jump-rope might still, be going,
somewhere
and I’m
Breathing back and forth in the belly of its swinging parabola.
I wonder what else might surface as I pass time waiting for my next wave.
Nick
I’m generally a late person; for me, this is a simple truth. Time is something that I’ve always taken seriously, but often this seriousness concerned only my time and nobody else’s. Selfish, yes, but it is the truth. Thus, at Duke and prior, I would often find myself running from place to place, trying to spend the most amount of time at one activity without infringing too heavily on the time of the following one, but usually these shenanigans would end with my water polo coach shooting a stern look at me and tapping his watch as I’d come huffing and puffing onto the pool deck 10 minutes late. I like to think that I take advantage of every single second I have, but unfortunately, this is often at the expense of other people’s time. And I have noticed this, and have been intending to fix this flaw for some time now, but to no avail. However, upon arriving to Medellín, a new concept of time has dawned on me. At nearly every event that I have attended here in Medellín, I have arrived at least five minutes or precisely on time. This is a new development, and Jota will likely laugh at my qualifying word “nearly.” The first meeting we had, I stumbled to our meeting spot about 15 minutes late – my clock was wrong, I swear. But regardless, I was late – and I easily live the closest out of the entire group to this spot. Maybe it’s because Jota is paisa, but recently this new desire to be a Colombian has taken control of life. I even got my haircut in ‘paisa’ (Colombian) style. All of my meetings or rendezvous with any Colombian, whether that is with my compañeros or my ‘jefes’ at Medellín Solidaria’s Prado Centro (which is where I am working currently), has been characterized by promptness on the part of the Colombian, and if there was going to be any alteration to this promptness, the Colombian would notify me, so as to make sure that I wasn’t sitting somewhere for an hour wondering what I was doing with my life. This characteristic promptness of the Colombians I’ve thus far met struck me, and it fits perfectly with this incredibly gracious culture the paisas have here; this is to say that they are a very emotionally aware people, they care about you and how you perceive them even before they really get to know you, and I think this is very special. So, to this end, I’ve not been late to a single meeting since then, due to my desire to show the world a little more respect than I’ve been giving it. In America I could get by with this and not make anything of it, but for some reason, I get the feeling that if I were late to every meeting here in Colombia, I would just perpetuate a stereotype or insult someone, which is the last thing I want to do. I hope that this habit sticks with me even after I leave Colombia.
Niki
I wait by the entrance of the metro station, and I wait, and I wait. I notice a tired woman leaning against the concrete wall. She is wearing comfortable, worn sneakers that remain white despite their age, and bright, rosy scrubs. She takes out a thin, crumpled piece of paper, and begins folding. She continues this way for a couple of minutes, and I see that she has created a delicate paper flower. The woman places it on the railing beside her, and exits the station. When she turns around, there is only a hollow space where her arm should have been. An elderly gentleman places his wrinkled hand on that of a passing boy wearing large headphones. The boy does not hear him at first, but stops to the touch. The man borrows his phone, and exchanges a few words for a cigarette. An Afro-Colombian man with dark sunglasses approaches the ticket booth, and hands his lime green metro card to a fair, young security guard. The guard gently takes his arm, and tenderly guides him up the stairs onto the platform. These are the minutes I spent waiting. In these thirty minutes while I wait for my cogestora to arrive, I watch and I learn. Time is relative, and I feel as if time in Colombia allows one to take in the world and express one’s humanity. I do not feel as if my time has been wasted while I wait.
Vaib
My arepizza (Arepa-Pizza), made with care, fits in my pocket. Its bright colors and delectable seasonings blur the effort put into it, much like how I have found family life in Colombia. Despite the amount of time spent on making dinner and setting the table, the large focus of the time is spent on the conversations had and memories made during dinner. It's turning a blind eye to the efforts that go into the day, but here in Colombia, I feel less hurried as my life is mostly full of those happy memories.
