"Now." What a short, simple word. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, in the English language "now" means "at the present time or moment." When we say "now" in English, it's generally understood that we're talking about "in the present moment." For example, if you say "I'm leaving now" it means that you are doing just that... leaving now. If you say "I'm doing it now" it means that whatever it is that you're doing, you're doing now. "Now" translated into Spanish becomes "ahora" and while technically it's definition is also "at the present time or moment," it's everyday use is somewhat different from our English definition of the word. It's all about concepts of time. In the United States, we live by the phrase "time is money." We take our time seriously. If we have a doctor's appointment at 9:00am, we're in the office on time, if not a few minutes earlier, and we expect to have our appointment at 9:00am, give or take a few minutes. If a dinner party invitations states 4:00pm as the start time, guests will arrive at 4:00pm. For us, time is quite fixed. As I've come to learn, this is not the case in Spain- generally speaking, in the Spanish culture, time is much more relaxed. I've spent two and a half hours in a hair salon getting my haircut over here. That's with an appointment, too. I've had classes that are scheduled to begin at 9:15am start anywhere between 9:20 and 9:30. I've showed up to get-togethers a full half-hour later than the stated "start time" and been one of the first to arrive. After five months, I've only just begun to learn when to show up for things and how to gauge how long something will take! It's just one aspect of the never-ending "cultural" learning process and I get a big kick out of it every day!
Since being back in Granada, I've learned that there are a few phrases that use the Spanish word for "now" and they all mean something slightly different regarding time. As you all already know, "ahora" translates to "now" in English. When you use "ahora," you could be talking about any moment in the next five to ten minutes. "Ahora después" translates to "now after" and when you use this phrase, you're talking about sometime in the next fifteen to thirty minutes. Only when you say "¡ahora mismo!" are you saying "right now!" and thus referring to the present time or moment. One of my "tutees" even tried explaining to me that sometimes "ahora" is even used in certain situations to mean "at some point in the future" or "later on" without any real knowledge of just when that moment will be... but I'll leave that explanation for another day :)
One of my favorite incidents involving different cultures' concepts of time happened two year. During my semester abroad in the spring of 2009, I became very good friends with a group of students in the city thanks to my host sister, Anais. Four of the students, two Germans named Simon and Matthias and two Spaniards named Juan Pedro and Miriam, shared an apartment in the center of the city. As the semester carried on, we spent more and more time in their apartment. One particular evening, we were all seated around the living room/dining room, just hanging out and relaxing for a bit before going out for tapas. Matthias looked at his watch and, looking over at Juanpe, asked, "When are we going out tonight?" Juanpe, fiddling around with something on his computer, looked up briefly and said "Well, ahora," and went back to what he was doing online. Hearing the word "now," Matthias stood up and left the room. A minute later he returned, all ready to go after having just put on his coat, gloves, hat and scarf. "Well, aren't we going now?" he asked, looking at the four of us around the room. (After having been in Spain for a few months, Simon, the other German, and I had learned that "now" doesn't necessarily mean "now" and so we, like the two Spaniards, had remained seated, relaxing.) Juanpe looked up at Matthias and just said "well, i said 'now' as in 'in a bit,' not right now!" As Matthias left the room to take off his coat, etc. I remember chuckling and thinking how funny different cultural perceptions of the same thing can be and how the same word can have different implications for different people! I still smile when I think about that night... after having studied different cultures and cultural tendencies in my international business classes and after having been abroad a few times, this moment brought so much of what I had learned to life!
In other news, I have a trip coming up! Tomorrow morning I'll be up bright and early to catch a bus from Granada to the city of Málaga. There, I'll head to the airport and wait to board Aer Lingus flight EI0583 to Dublin, Ireland! One of my best friends from Ellington, the lovely Miss Ashton Porter, has been in Ireland since last September, working on her Masters Degree in Global Health at Trinity College Dublin. If all goes according to schedule, I'll land in Dublin at 2:05pm tomorrow and after catching a shuttle from the airport I'll arrive at O'Connell Street (a main street located near the River Liffey) where I'll meet up with Ashton to begin our weekend together. I couldn't be more excited! Not only am I looking forward to having a nice four-day vacation, but I'm also really looking forward to seeing my friend. Ashton visited me here in Granada back at the beginning of November and it's about time that I flew over (up?) and saw her! Depending on the weather this weekend, we're hoping to enjoy a few days in Dublin and spend at least one day out west, exploring either Kilarney or Galway and Connemara. Whatever we end up doing, I know that we're going to have a wonderful time!
Alright, it's back to work for me... I've got to send some last-minute emails and finish packing up my backpack so that I'm all set to go for tomorrow morning.
¡Hasta ahora! See you soon!
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