#tico time

[whereischlor-blog]

every day is hammock day in Central America. it’s wonderful how time just slooooooows down here. I mean, I already feel like a sloth in my everyday life, but Ticos have shown me a new way of living — slower! :)

[eileentravels]

Running on "Tico Time"

(Which is evidently a thing)

I like to believe that I am a punctual person. I pretty much live by the rule "If you're early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late." I think it's my ballet pst that has given me this reasoning because if you didn't show up to class at least 15 minutes early you lost your chance to warm-up and you risk not being able to perform your plies at the caliber you know you can. Besides that, not warming up properly can lead to injury, and an injury in the dance world is basically a death sentence.

Here, they operate on a slightly different mind set. Affectionately called "Tico Time," this refers to the Costa Rican proclivity to always be running late. I think this mentality is related to another one of their famous sayings, "Pura Vida." Living a pure or simple life is not easily achieved when you are under time constraints.

That being said, I had to start a dance rehearsal 30 minutes late because one of the two people involved in the dance was late. That was frustrating for me as a choreographer, but it was ultimately fine as they learned the whole dance (which is around 30 seconds) in ten minutes. Apparently I teach choreography faster than what most of the kids here are accustomed to, but not too fast as they are able to pick up the steps. There are definitely moments where I wish I could have taught them more, but I believe we're working at a good pace to be ready for the show in another month.

After my four hours of dance rehearsals and trying to get my charger situation sorted out (the charger that I borrowed was not compatible with my model), Lisa treated us to ice cream. It was called vanilla chocolate ice cream but there definitely wasn't enough chocolate ice cream for my taste. I still ate half of the tub of ice cream (even after splitting it with five other people). Don't worry, I walked back to my house afterwards to try to make up for all of the ice cream eating. And I still had enough room for dinner.

[qmediaworld]

What Time Is It? It's Tico Time!

What Time Is It? It’s Tico Time!

TICO BULL – Ha, (Ja in Spanish, not to be confused with Ya, which has totally different meaning) Tico Time!

If a party starts at 1. The first guest will arrive no earlier than 2. Or 3. Or 4. If you’re supposed to have your cable installed on Monday, just call it Wednesday for safe measure.

Ticos (Costa Ricans) are extremely relaxed and never in a hurry, which may well have to do with the fact…

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[leavingtheeastcoast-blog]

Day 12: Encountering the Locals

Today was a really great day. We walked around an assigned area and our job was to observe local grocery stores/coffee shops/bakeries and take note of their demographic, coffee type, products, etc. At first I was nervous because, although I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, I wasn’t super confident in my Spanish abilities. However, once I started talking it flowed enough to get my point across.

Cultural differences with the citizens didn’t seem to have an issue--Costa Rican locals are much friendlier than locals of big American cities would be. Everyone was kind to us and appreciated our struggling Spanish; most everyone noted right away our child-like Spanish and quickly switched to fluent English. It made me feel guilty for never fluently learning another country’s language, like most people here have done. In America, the common, narrow-minded viewpoint is “If you’re in our country, then you should speak our language” but down here it’s so much more open minded and I love it. They were open to us foreigners and answered our questions as well as they could. They asked us where we were from and asked about our study abroad trip, even giving us suggestions of where to visit. 

Costa Ricans in general are friendly, laid-back, and follow the “Tico-time,” or a few minutes late to everything. The living differences are pretty different; most places seem cramped and there is a lot of trash in the city. Money doesn’t go as far here, so the middle class live in smaller, compact homes, all with barbed wire at the top. They are also a lot more politically involved that most Americans.

All in all, today was a good day and the Ticos we met were really genuine, caring people!

[karlamerawrites]

Learning to be Patient Yesterday marked exactly a week since I've been home from backpacking costa Rica. And I learned a lot on my trip mostly about myself rather than the profoundly beautiful country I was in…but I think that's what I needed most. I've struggled a long time to grasp the concept of time… In ways I still struggle with it. I'm not very cordial. I forget things that I put on my calendar regularly and I always find it unfair how fun just sucks time out of one's life. Most importantly I hate when I feel like my time is being or has been wasted. My demeanor and attitude changes drastically and I become this superhuman bitch that no one likes. I will verbally batter and reiterate over and over to someone how much they've ruined my day and possibly my life This would affect my life both with family and friends. I don't have many friends and at times I don't really think I'm liked by my family, though I know they do love me. no patcience. Relaxed, calm down people would tell me. Even in costa Rica Time in Costa Rica was irrelevant. It didn't exist and it didn't matter because the days were long for the most part and lights were warm, again for the most part. They called time there, at least the tourists, tour guides and non-locals "tico time"

[danascostarica-blog]

Well that wasn't optimal.

So, today, I went to my internship to actually work, not just have an interview.  So, I have it arranged with our school transportation system to take me at 12:30, which gives me about 5-10 minutes cushion.  I love being early.  Anyway, my driver was 20 minutes late, and then informs me that he's dropping off a faculty member.  I got kicked out of the front seat and couldn't get my trap-back door open, so Frank had to wedge it open with a magic elbow and a kick.  Anyway, it was not a good trip.  My window was broken, my seat belt would even reach the clicker thing if no one was sitting in the seat.  Then, the men started talking about how quiet women were like dutchess and talking about me and what I was doing just sitting back there.  I held my tongue, tontos!

After my 1.5 hour car ride (which should have realistically taken me 30 min. max) I get to my placement 45 minutes late.  My supervisor was NOT happy.  I explained the situation, and she moved her frustration to the driver, and sympathized with the sickness I was feeling from the choppy car ride.  Car sickness = happening a lot here.

Anyway, I tutored kids for almost 2 hours which was fabulous.  They're learning English, and I had such a fun time.  It's interesting because I didn't really learn English grammar, so I have to put their homework into Spanish to be able to then translate it back into English so I can explain why things are the way they are.  That's a good sign, right?  However, I'm trying to be a social worker, so I'm not really sure how that will get applied.  

When the kids were done, my taxi was supposed to pick me up.  I waited 15 minutes, 30 minutes (typical Tico time), 45 minutes, an hour.  My supervisor was, you guessed it, infuriated.  She ended up having to leave, so I was in this sketch neighborhood by myself waiting for my ride.  I had no cell phone, no nothing.  Finally after about an hour, he came and took me home.   When I got home, my mamatica could see I was clearly upset from my sub-par experience.   She listened while my scattered brain tried to explain the situation. So then she got on her phone, and started rattling some ears.  To say she is protective is an understatement.  But her granddaughters are here, and after the phone calls, we laughed, joked, ate chocolate, and studied together at the bar.  Now she's running in and out of my room, and bringing childhood joy into my day.