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Cultural Definitions Of Time

by Thad­deus Tripp Ressler

“The Mex­i­can ‘ahori­ta’ is a mea­sure of time as elu­sive as a coy­ote in the mid­dle of a full moon. It’s like try­ing to catch a shad­ow with a but­ter­fly net. It always seems just out of reach. It’s that moment when time seems to bend and twist, turn­ing a sim­ple ‘ahori­ta’ into a tem­po­ral odyssey wor­thy of the labyrinths of the under­world. It’s a promise of prompt­ness that can trans­late into min­utes, hours, or even days, depend­ing on the whims of the uni­verse and the individual’s dis­po­si­tion. In short, the ‘Ahori­ta Mex­i­cano’ is an expe­ri­ence as sur­re­al as a singing mari­achi band per­form­ing while rid­ing a uni­corn through the cob­ble­stone streets of a mag­i­cal town. A true gem of Latin Amer­i­can cul­ture and time!” ~Ahori­ta! by Ozwal­do Olvera Tre­jo    

Ahori­ta is a word that means many things to many peo­ple in Mex­i­co. Trans­lat­ed direct­ly it means ‘right now’, but it’s true mean­ing comes down to the per­son say­ing it, the tim­ing of it, and the con­text. It could mean right now, if that per­son is in front of you and you’ve just asked when they were plan­ning on leav­ing the par­ty. Then again, it could mean right after he says good­bye to every­one in his imme­di­ate and extend­ed fam­i­ly and has tak­en mul­ti­ple shots of tequi­la with them. It is wide­ly accept­ed here, and joked about often. Mary Carmen’s son, Oswal­do, lov­ing­ly makes key chains sim­i­lar to the plaque above as trib­ute.

In a coun­try where show­ing up on time to a par­ty is con­sid­ered uncouth and down­right rude, Mex­i­can cul­ture demands a word like ahori­ta. It is both lie and fact, hon­est desire and myth­ic brush-off. It can be used to post­pone or indi­rect­ly can­cel plans with­out ever hav­ing to say the actu­al words. On the phone it could mean that per­son is still in bed and con­sid­er­ing what clothes to wear, despite hav­ing told that they’re com­ing over, ahori­ta.

It requires a knowl­edge and under­stand­ing of the per­son you’re speak­ing with. If a more seri­ous per­son says it to you, feel free to take it more seri­ous­ly. If a more… care­free per­son, says it, be more lib­er­al with the grains of salt you’re con­sum­ing. If even a drop of alco­hol is involved, “may the odds be ever in your favor.”

Every­where I’ve been has some­thing akin to this. We all have friends that are chron­i­cal­ly late or blow us off by say­ing one thing and mean­ing anoth­er. A siz­able num­ber of peo­ple I know get annoyed and call it irre­spon­si­ble. How­ev­er, my Domini­can and Jamaica friends in New York shrug, raise an eye­brow, and state “Island Time”, like I should’ve known bet­ter. My black friends in Chica­go laugh­ing­ly call it “CPT”, or Col­ored Peo­ple Time. How­ev­er, noth­ing I’ve come across seems to have quite the ele­gance, finesse, and cul­tur­al under­stand­ing of the sin­gu­lar word that is the Mex­i­can, Ahori­ta.

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