Panamanian Time ... good or bad?

            As many of you may have experienced, Panamanians use time very differently as how North Americans do. In my opinion, Panamanians tend to be less stressed about being on time to social events. While I was living in Louisville, I noticed that if you didn’t arrive on time to something you were not able to go in or if you had an appointment you would have to reschedule. This doesn’t mean, that we as Panamanians don’t care about being on time to important events like meetings, job interviews, appointments and so on. I believe that we tend to chill more and focus on having a good time, instead of stressing ourselves on getting on time and spend a bad time when you are supposed to spend a good one.

            To be honest there are plenty of examples on how Panamanians treat time. It happens so often, that it has become part of our culture. For example, every time that my friends and I plan a trip to go to the beach we say “ok, we have to leave early in order to get tanned so lets leave at 8am”. Then, the day comes and we leave at noon, and the funny part is that no one cares. When I was studying back in Tampa, we planned a trip to go to a beach near by and we said be ready at 7:30am. The next morning my friends were picking me up at 7:15 and I couldn’t believe it. So much stress to go to the beach when it is supposed to be a day to relax, but I understand that it’s part of their culture to be on time. Another example would be, when we have students from Louisville here at QLU, you could see that they arrive on time for class and the Panamanian students arrive 15 or 20 minutes after the class started. I know that sometimes it is bad to always be late and I think that we need to correct when it comes to important events like class, meetings and appointments.

            As I said before, I think that Panamanians tend to focus more on having fun or pursuing happiness, instead of worrying for little details like many other cultures do. On the other hand, other cultures have to stress themselves about little details in order to be happy with themselves, and if they don’t they feel disoriented. Having the opportunity to spend time with people from different cultures, I realized that we are more laid back and don’t let things upset us as much as they should.  It is funny how people from other countries, tend to tease Panamanians about how we manage our time. I know that it might not be something that we should be proud of, but with time it has become part of who we are.