Something that I have always struggled with is time. I am as punctual as it gets. I like to be on time, heck, even be early if I can. I like to have time to do things and be able to do them well the first time. Being rushed is one of the most stressful things to me. I don’t know if this is from my Marine grandfather, my dad always saying ‘if you’re not early, you’re late’, or from my perfectionist tendencies, but it has never truly been a problem…. until I got to Thailand.
Here in Thailand, 5 minutes means 20, an hour means 2, and “we leave now” means the car leaves the driveway anywhere from 4-50 minutes. Time does not matter here, you get things done when you can and, somehow, everyone is okay with it. I value time so much because I see it as respecting other people, I respect your time so I am going to show up when I say I will. In America that is perfectly okay, but here it caused more harm than good. I would get so stressed when my hosts would tell us one time and then come in and say “we leave in 5 minutes” when we were supposed to have an extra two hours. It was affecting my attitude, the way I handled situations, and it was holding me back from truly enjoying the things we were doing. Last week- about 7 weeks late- I realized, “Lauren, not everything has to be so serious. Lighten up and enjoy your last week here!” So I decided to make a joke out of this thing called “time”, since it is basically non-existent here, and wrote down all the events that took place this last week.
So without further ado, welcome to the life my team and I have lived these past two months, or as I like to call it, “Thai Time”.
*An excerpt from my Google Keep*
??
“We leave for the tournament at 4:30” gets in truck at 5:27
Last Friday teaching, usually leave at 9:00, get woken up at 7:00 and told we are leaving at 7:30, don’t get in the car until 7:44
Same event as above, after driving for an hour at 8:47 Nan goes, “10 minutes”, we arrive at 9:02
“We leave to go home at 2:00”, gets in car at 3:12
Movie starts at 9:00 they say, 9:16 we press play
“We leave at 1:00 for soccer” – truck pulls out at at 1:32
“Be ready to leave at 6:20 for Tesco”, truck rolls out at 6:41
“The kids will wake you up 5:30 for Christmas morning!” Receives a knock on the door at 5:57
“We leave for soccer as soon as your done eating”, finishes eating at 12:41. At 12:46 we are told “5 minutes”. Leaves drive way at 1:02
Christmas service starts at 4:00 they tell us, leaves house at 5:34
*new record for the week!!*
Early Tuesday Morning: “We leave at 3:00 to go camping”
*1:52 eating lunch* “We leave at 2:00”
*pulls out of drive way at 3:33*
“Camp site is 55 minutes away” arrives at 5:35
“Soccer game starts at 4:00” we arrive at 4:48, everyone else at 5:01
“Let’s play spoons at 8:30” whole team sitting at table waiting, at 9:41 finds out whole family is asleep
“Van comes at 9:00” they say, pulls out of driveway at 11:02- couldn’t go out without a bang!!!
This helped me relax and realize that not everything has to be serious, it allowed me to just take it one thing at a time and even gave me some laughs. I am thankful for my time that has been spent here in Thailand, for the people, the experiences, and the lessons that I have learned. God has used these past two months to show me a lot of things and really push me out of what I view as “normal”. I’ve heard that time is even worse in Africa – someone please explain how that is possible- but I am ready to experience all that is in store in Malawi! Thank you for all the prayers and support. God bless.
