The Order of Things

We in America are slaves to time.  The almightly appointment calendar dictates who, what, where and when.  It is a virtue to be on time, to finish a project when we said we would,  and we spend money to learn from the best how to more efficiently use our precious time.

In Sikkim, I believe people are slaves to the order in which things should be done. The fact that this might effect being on time is irrelevant, inconsequential, and, it seems, not taken into consideration. For instance, today (Indian Independence Day) we had a date to meet some students staying in the school hostel at a restaurant in town in order to watch the holiday festivities at the local stadium. The restaurant we were meeting at looks down on the stadium (photos to come). Unbeknownst to us, there was a pick-up basketball game up at the school that was supposed to happen before the hostel students came down to meet us at the restaurant. That was the order of things and that is how it played out.  The fact that the basketball game made the students 2 hours late from the designated meeting time was of no consequence.  As another example, if, after we have been picked up to be taken to school, a call comes in to the driver to pick up some items along the way, the order of things dictates that the items be picked up on the way to school even if it makes us late for the start of the day. When we went to get the girls measured for uniforms yesterday we spoke with a lovely man who minutes later was yelling at someone in the street.  The order of things dictated that the man in the street should come before us (not sure why....), so we waited 10 minutes in the close air of the small shop while he left the shop to find the man on the street. To be fair, that guy ended up being the man with the measuring tape (a uniform store with only one measuring tape? Curious....) and in the order of things he needed to come to the shop before we could place our order with the owner.

The one notable exception to this rule that I have found so far is the actual driving itself.  When there is a slow vehicle in front of us, regardless of the treacherous nature of the maneuver, the driver will try to pass the slow car or truck as if we were in a great hurry to get to our destination.  At that moment in time, getting ahead (usually just to drive slowly behind a car right in front of the previous car) and getting where we are going quickly are the pressing priorities.

I can't imagine that we will ever assimilate to the point where we value the order of things more than the time commitments we make, but we have settled into the notion that we are not in control of time here in Sikkim and that we might as well have things to do while we wait for our rightful place in the order of things.