One of the many things we were able to learn about in Arroyo Palenque is the concept of “village time.” “Village time” is about an hour later than Palenque time. Keep in mind that this is on top of “Mexico Time” which is typically a half an hour later than whatever time is stated. So out here in the middle of the southern Mexican hills things run about an hour and a half late.
The tricky part of the whole time deal is that you don’t know if people are telling you Palenque time or “village time.” For example, after attempting to clarify the time difference with our pastor in Arroyo Palenque, he told us that our Combie (van) would be coming to pick us up at 7am. So, not wanting to be late for our ride we were up packed and ready to go at 7am. We wait…we wait…about 7:30am were ask our contact
“At what time is the combie coming?”
“A las siete. At 7am” he says.
“What time is it?” we ask him knowing that it is 7:30 am trying to discern if we are talking village or Palenque time.
“No lo tiene. I don’t have the time” he responds.
“Its 7:30 am” we inform him.
“Oh. oh” he says.
“So where is the combie?” we ask.
This is the point where he looks at us as though we were stupid and says “No se. I don’t know.“
This same situation happened many times through out these past two weeks. Now by the end of the second week we were pretty sure we had the time difference down…everything is an hour and a half late. Sunday rolls around and we are getting ready for the Sunday service which starts at 10am, or so our pastor says. Around 9am we eat our breakfast noticing that some people are in the church but don‘t think so much about it. We pack up a little bit thinking that we would go through our songs and practice our drama once more before the service when Alas we hear our pastor starting the service at 9:45am! This is 15 minutes, or 1 hour and 45 minutes “village time” early! Figures such a thing would happen for the Sunday service, the one time that you would want to have yourselves put together and practiced! Oh well, you live and learn…you learn that God is with you and that he is a powerful God and can use any unprepared missionary for His glory.
