Ever hear the expression “time is money”? Well here, they have little money, and you wait for everything. Traffic during rush hour is crazy, and the jeepnies act like they own the road. One night, it took me an hour to go about one mile.
Lines at the grocery stores are long and slow-moving, and it seems that you do more waiting than shopping. Last week, I was at a store call CDR king, kind of a local version of a cheap Radio Shack. I waited for an hour to purchase a single item. Two days later, the item broke, and I went back to the store only to wait an additional half hour to talk to customer service. The phone I bought was only worth $12.
Back home, we sometimes joke about Utah standard time, when things start 15 minutes late. Here it is Filipino standard time, and some things start 45 minutes to an hour late. Living in the Philippines means a lot of waiting.
