5 / 23 / 19 Week 05: Cultural Differences Concerning TIME Blog

I want to begin by telling you about my personal experience of knowing the church through two missionaries. One of them was American and the other Peruvian, I remember that the first time we had an appointment in my house, the agreed time was 7 PM and in fact my parents and I were a little unsure about their arrival and we even thought that they would not come, but we were very surprised when the bell of our house rang at 6:55 PM because it was the first time we realized that Americans are usually very punctual. 

Throughout the years of membership, I have always valued and appreciated the punctuality and the value of the word that Americans have because it is something that in Peru people do not have. It is very common here to always ask for "favors" like for example so that they can attend you faster, if you commit any fault you ask for the favor to not be sanctioned, or when you are very influential you always want to take advantage of that situation instead of for merit itself and not simply for a favor. 

Nowadays corruption in my country is overflowing so much that journalists have taken out audios of conversations between magistrates and judges requesting "favors" just for being "friends" and this is really outrageous. I hear opinions from people saying "but if our authorities usually do" that "because we do not", which demonstrates a lack of values ​​and principles of honesty.

Now seeing it from a perspective with respect to education, I think that in the majority of schools it is usually polychronic, to be more clear l will give examples of what I say. We usually hold many parties at Peruvian schools in which the participation of children and parents is requested but the real problem is the punctuality because they normally date you at 4 PM, but they usually start two hours later than agreed; and with this indirectly students are being taught to be unpunctual.

People always justify them and look for excuses or guilt others; and  a lot students do this, when they say for example: teacher did not do homework because I did not have time, or I can not learn because I have many problems, etc. Then the students get used to always looking for some pretext not to fulfill their obligations.

As parents and members of the church we must seek excellence and I believe that it refers to learning the good and from the best people. I believe that being part of a polychronic society I will always be very emotional and sensitive, but I must understand that it is good to be so long as you do not lose the true sense of being a human being and learn to respect the culture of others.