June 15th, 2007

(A note to those people who aren't those two people I know have me on RSS feed: a downside of not having internet at site is that sometimes I have to post more than one blog entry at one time. Like now. Please note. An additional downside is the utter futility of trying to remember semi-forgotten information without Google. I nearly destroyed my soul this week trying to remember the name "Medea.")

I maintain that the hands-down most annoying thing about living in Peru (putting aside, of course, anything directly related to its under-developedness. The theme of this post will not be “OMG the water is, like, soooo gross!”) is how people wait in line. Or, to put it clearly, how they don’t. I’m not talking about the formal lines, like the ones for the bank or free Pachamanca, in which people enforce the line like it’s their job, shouting “COLA!” if you step more than an centimeter out of the shadow of the person in front of you seeking some semblance of personal space; no, those are fine. I’m talking about any time when people have to informally wait for some commodity, and the “line” becomes a “bunch,” “COLA!” becomes a suddenly meek gringa mumbling “but I was here first…” and the world goes to hell.

Yesterday I had to wait in line to see the mayor to clear up some funding issue for our girls’ leadership camp, and so I went and sat in his secretary-monitored waiting room. In the middle of me waiting 10 minutes or so, the mayor went to a meeting, so everybody else who was waiting left. I didn’t have anything else to do at the moment, so I just sat and waited the half-hour for him to return, reading a March issue of The Economist. After I’d waited that time, I glanced in the office and realized the mayor had returned, and, recognizing my undeniable first place in line, I stood up and asked the secretary is I could go in.

Bad move. I should have just snuck in and pounced. Some guy who had just entered the office maybe 45 seconds before heard me and apparently thought, “Oh, the mayor’s back? Convenient!” and totally hijacked my spot, not to mention the spots of the three people who were now waiting behind me. I gave him an “AY!” and the meanest glare I could muster, to which he responded with a pout, and aerial finger pinch, and an “Un ratito.” Oh, you just need a couple minutes with the mayor? Perhaps to discuss some urgent budgeting matter? Why, that makes you completely different from me! Because, see, I was going to go into the mayor’s office and read him the entirety of Ulysses in Pig Latin. Go ahead, then. Glad we cleared that up.

Perhaps the worst part was, when I looked incredulously at the secretary, she gave me a “What can you do” look and accompanying shrug. She should be able to do better. She might have learned this from me, in addressing the next guy who tried to cut me in line when I was waiting inside the office. He got a firm “NO,” and quite possibly a pantomimed shove in the chest; rage clouds the memory.

Waiting for things is something people (and therefore, I) have to do a lot here, what with a pretty across-the-board level of inefficiency, and the way in which people do (or…don’t) it blows my mind. It’s not just me, either, I know I’ve seen Peruvians piss each other off in lines. I know this is one thing I will never get used to, because I will never have the basic sense of entitlement required to do what that guy did yesterday. I do, however, need to find a way to contain my rage about it. Thank goodness for blogs with disclaimers.