Will I ever get used to living in a culture that is not time oriented? Even though I work in a school each room has a clock that is either broken, showing the wrong time or just not there. Days when the classroom clock fails I have to take a stab at guessing the time. The Dutch side of me finds the relaxed system sometimes a bit infuriating with teachers finishing classes whenever or arriving late back to lessons I am relieving.
Just today I extended my Grade 2 lesson by 10 minutes because their clock was 10 minutes slow. Moments ago I finished teaching Grade 1 who usually have a clock sitting clearly on their wall but today it has vanished. I thought to myself that if I just had a quick glance at the teacher’s laptop I could have a good gauge as to how time was ticking along….only to discover that even that was incorrect. Grrrah!!!!
Right now as I glance around me my phone says one time, my laptop is three minutes behind and the clock on the wall is a further 2 minutes slow. What do I do? Will I ever discover a way of order in this confusion?
The lesson learnt from this culture is not the value of time but the value of community. They do not have a preoccupation of "time is money". There is no need to have every clock in working order and the school running like the clogs inside it. No, this culture values looking after each other. Time may be relative to Cambodians but they will always stop to say “Hello” to another person. They have a heart willing to break from their personal routine to provide for the greater needs of theose around them.
I find it interesting observing how things work in this community focused culture. Maybe it is time to break away from the controls I have allowed time to have over my life and make room for a more Godly pace of life.
Apart from that I may have to start carrying my phone to each class so I can have a clear picture on what the time is without letting it lord over me. Well it’s either that or climbing on chairs to reach and change every clock in the school. I think the first plan might be the best way (and also a whole lot safer knowing my balancing skills) to be flexible in working out a ways of adjusting into this unregulated system.
