Living Like a Local: “Mexican Time”

When you hear people talk about “Mexican time”, you don’t really know what that means until you’ve actually lived in Mexico. In the past, I went on vacations to Cancun with my family, so I didn’t really count that as understanding the concept of “Mexican time” since we never had schedules to follow. Even when I volunteered abroad in Mérida, I had a schedule to stick to since I worked at a food bank, and whenever I took excursions out of the city, the bus schedules were somewhat on time. Living in Agua Caliente, however, is a whole other story!

Some of my classmates are doing their practicums with organizations with set work hours and co-workers and supervisors, but here in Agua Caliente, I’m a solo gal communicating with my professor via Skype weekly, while my other supervisor is currently exploring the hills of India looking for more exotic plants to investigate. My schedule is relatively “set-it-yourself” and while I’d like to sleep in in the mornings, the carpenters working in the shed like to work at the crack of dawn (what I mean is 8am, but still, SUPER early and who wants to wake up to sawing sounds?!)

My supervisor who lives in Mexico has this Moringa germplasm site where he plants all the Moringas he’s been able to collect from around the world, along with other trees that grow in dry tropical areas.

On the times when I don’t work on my coding part-time job or on my Moringa projects, I get invited to travel to other parts of Mexico such as Colima (the city), Manzanillo, La Manzanilla, Melaque, Cihuatlan, etc. It’s funny because I’m so used to being on time for everything, that when the family says we’re heading out at a certain time, I’m ready to go about 10 minutes before said time. However, this has been my error on more than one occasion!

The first occasion: We were going to La Manzanilla to the beach and to grab some yummy fresh seafood for lunch, and I was told “Vamos a La Manzanilla a las dos” so as you all know, I’m extremely punctual, and I’m ready to go. Two hours later, my host father texts me “Vamos!” Yes. TWO WHOLE hours later! But I didn’t quite learn my lesson…

We always manage to go to the beach at La Manzanilla when it’s cloudy :c

Second occasion: We were going to Manzanillo to Walmart and I was super excited since *civilization and cityyyyyy* and I was in the middle of eating my lunch, and I’m like “¿A que hora nos vamos?” and my host mother goes “Ahorita”, roughly meaning, “[like] right now”. So here I am trying to scarf down what’s left of my soup and rice, and then I see my host mother and sis just grabbing their plates and sloooooowly sitting down and taking their time eating.

Lesson learned that “ahorita” never really means “right now” and that I need to learn to take the times they mention REALLY lightly or risk choking on my food the next time lol.