"Peruvian Time"

Something I learned really quickly here is that people here never come on time to anything. "Peruvian time" refers to the idea that arriving up to an hour late is normal. Peruvians are generally laid back and relaxed, so they say it's not that they're always late, just that they're not in a hurry.

This is especially true for classes. The kids' idea of "on time" is a half hour late, and some kids will even show up 15 minutes before the class ends. It drove me crazy at first, since I still had to arrive on time. If I arrive late, the kids will just arrive later. But I'm now starting to get used to it. I use the time to put my lesson together, relax, eat a snack, and I even wrote out a blog post today waiting for my advanced English students.

That's what makes this article so hilarious. It's from February 2007, and at the time the government was trying to make people more punctual. It was such a problem in government that they named a special type of Peruvian time after the president -- "Cabana time", which means being over 2 hours late. Obviously, this initiative wasn't successful, but I think it's pretty funny.