Different Times

South Africans have a completely different concept of time than we as Americans do. We had fair warning to it before we got here, but experiencing it is a whole other thing. These differences can be illustrated by:

• Tea Time: when 10 am rolls around everyone stops what they're doing to sit and enjoy tea time. While many drink tea, coffee and juice are other favorites. Bread is always offered too. This consummation of tea lasts anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes. The other nurse we works with always uses this time to have her breakfast, which last week consisted of chicken liver and 4 slices of bread. Every single day. Yummmm. Sidenote: on Monday's when we're at the clinic all day, tea time is still an option. People wait for as many as 6 hours to see a doctor, yet many of the workers still take this break. Because of this, we always chose to skip it.
• Lunch Time: lunch break here is almost always taken at 1. Most days we have lunch with Meaghan (a girl who lives in my house too) and two girls from Holland who are also interning at Beautiful Gate. Lunch break is always an hour long, at least. Our first day at Beautiful Gate we finished our lunch in about a half an hour, got up to go inside, and were told that we weren't allowed inside till one hour was over, because we were on lunch.
• Time in general: people here just don't regard time the same way we as Americans do. If someone says they'll be there to pick you up at 10, you should probably interpret that as anywhere from 9:45 until 10:30. In fact when Nokazola picks us up she doesn't give us a time, but a time frame. People here do everything slower: walk, talk, serve people at restaurants, NOT DRIVE (post to come about this), but basically everything else. The nurses at Beautiful Gate are always amazed by how quickly Kayla and I do things. 

Although it can be frustrating at times, it's nice when time is on your side, and fun to experience the customs of a different culture. It's going to be a rough change going back to a culture where workers receive very, very limited breaks...