Patience Really is a Virtue

As Americans we have many different methods to show are impatience. When we felt like we have waited too long in a line at a grocery store we can start tapping our foot, check our watch repeatedly, letting out long sighs, or if all else fails ask to see the manager. Oh how those days are so long ago. In the Philippines waiting is expected and just a part of life, sort of like breathing. No matter what you do you are going to wait. There was the time when my supervisor told me to meet him at a random guys house at 9 am. Now at this point I knew better than to show up at exactly 9 am so I made a nice late appearance at 9:30 am. The owner of the house invited me in and fed me crackers and soda and we just sat around not saying much. I finally checked my cellphone and it said 10:30 am and my supervisor still wasn't there. I sent him and text and then waited some more. At about 11:30 am he texted back and said he'd be there in a couple of minutes. Okay I thought not too big of a deal. So of course I was invited to eat lunch with the strangers family which I did and after a meal of fish and rice I texted my supervisor again (12:30pm). I waited for a response and got one at about 1 pm. The message said I won't make it but two other guys are coming buy and he asked me to wait for them. So after a day of doing nothing I took a little nap outside and woke up at about 2:30 pm. The guys hadn't shown up yet and at this point I decided it was time to go home. So I told my host thank you and walked home. No one ever showed up, I checked with my host.
Then there was this morning. Rebeka and I run an English club at her school at 8am on Saturday mornings. Rebeka checked with her other faculty members and two of them said they would be there at 8am for graduation practice. Now Rebeka and I made the mistake of being early we were there at about 7:30 am but there were four or five seniors there also. Anyways we sat around and more kids showed up. By 8 am there was half of the senior class there and some of our English club kids. At 8:30 am we just started holding the meeting outside and the seniors were still waiting. However there was no foot tapping or watch checking. They were just sitting around chatting and joking not even aware of the time. At 9:30 am we heard a cheer from the seniors and it was a signal that the gates to the school were unlocked. We finished our meeting outside and went into the school yard at 10 am. The gates were opened but the seniors were in their classroom still waiting. The graduation practice hadn't started yet. I guess an hour and a half late is better than.....
Two last points. One point is showing up for an event an hour and a half late isn't being late at all. It is called Pilipino time. This is by no way a negative term. Then there is American time which means arriving at an event at least ten minutes before it starts. When people are going to an event they sometimes clarify the start time by saying 9 am Pilipino time or 9 am American time. The translation is show up when you want for the former or you need to be there at 9am for the latter.
The last point is less of a point and more of a joke. The background to the joke is this: many Pilipinos think that they have stubby noses and Americans have long, beautiful noses. So the joke goes something like this. God told all the people that he was going to hand out noses at noon. The Americans arrived at 11:30 and were rewarded with the first choice of noses. The Americans choose all the long, beautiful noses. The Pilipinos arrived at around 2pm and all that was left were the smooshed noses from the bottom of the pile. They couldn't choose there noses and had to take the smooshed noses! Joke, joke, joke.