Hora Ecuadoriana

Throughout my many orientations here we were warned time and time again about "Hora Ecuadoriana", or Ecuadorian Time. Basically, everything is super slow and they are not specific about time at all. If you are invited to a party for 5pm, its expected that you won't arrive until 6:30 or 7 (kind of like the Rue side of my family, just a little more extreme). This concept was hard for me to grasp, being that I am a very punctual person and usual early to most meetings/events/classes etc.

This past Monday we had our orientation for the Galapagos. We did not have class that day since we just returned from a trip on Sunday. Orientation was scheduled for 8am; those of us weren't too pleased having to be here so early especially with readjusting to the altitude yet again. I gave myself plenty of time, calling the taxi at 7:30am. Usually the taxis come within 5 minutes. On Monday, when I actually had somewhere to be at a specific time, the taxi came at 7:45. I had him take me directly to the school, rather than catching my bus, assuming that it would be faster. And of course, traffic was horrible. Being punctual me, I was getting anxious about getting to the university on time and having to be that one awkward student who shows up late.

I eventually got to the school at exactly 8:00am and hustled to the assigned room. I found all 35 other students in my program standing outside the room. Ends up the room was booked. We stood outside it for 20 minutes, until the director decided to find another room. All those rooms were booked too, so we eventually took over a space on the lawn and started our "orientation" at 8:35am. They quickly threw pointless information at us for 25 minutes so the students with class at 9am would be on time.

Throughout this whole mess of an "orientation" the director and other Ecuadorians were very calm and collected, not at all stressing out over the missed time like a typical American would have been. Even though I have been here a month, I am still getting used to the laid-back mentality here. We have been warned that the islands are even more laid back...not sure if that's possible. But I will be finding that our for myself in another week's time. Until then, Chao!