Latin People Time is noooo joke

This week began the 4 day seminar over how to form a small business. A couple of months ago after doing a small assessment of the high school that I am working with, I noticed that there isn’t a strong program for entrepreneurship. So I asked a local organization here in Panama to teach the students business principles and how to start their own after graduation. After the seminar I asked all the students if they enjoyed it and what could be improved to make it better. I made sure to say give me your true opinion and not something I would expect to hear. Surprisingly only one person said that it was boring. They all seemed to enjoy it and gave their full participation. It was good to hear all of those who appreciated the effort I put into making this happen, and all the request to repeat the seminar for another group of students.  The seminar consisted of one day explain what is Ampyme and how they are involved with the formation of small businesses also the different types of business. The next day was over the relationship between the boss and employees, and on the third day the students had to make their own business and present it. This was the coolest part. To watch them get up and explain their products, even though I didn’t understand half of what they said. So I would say overall the seminar has gone well, the only issue I had is the issue with time here. I wrote a formal letter to the organization confirming the time and the date of the seminar. It was scheduled at 9 o’clock in the morning. The students and I sat waiting for them to show for an hour and a half. When they arrived it was like everything was on schedule or something. No explanation for the tardiness or anything. So the next day I didn’t go get the students at 9 because I figured that they would be late again.  I sat in the lab waiting for them playing with my laptop. When they finally arrived an hour late homeboy got an attitude with me because the students weren’t in the room ready, because he has other appointments. To make it more annoying, my boss happened to make a surprise visit and get there the same exact time that they did. I think I was set-up. The next day we agreed to push the time back to 10 o’clock. We had the students ready and set up to go at 10 o’clock. They presenters didn’t show up till 1115. I have always thought that my people running on CPT (Colored People Time) is crazy but this is on a whole new level. Latin people time is no joke.

Lately there have been a lot of kids hanging outside the classrooms. Having a bunch of kids walking around freely is not good for anyone, especially when the majority is boys. I have witnessed my third fight this week. Seeing a fight always gets me angry. Not because the students are trying to beat on each other, kids have been beating on each other since the beginning of time. It’s because usually when I see one I’m on the other side of the building and I run full speed to go and stop it. By time I get there teacher pops out of a classroom and stops it before I can. I ran full speed in this 90 degree weather and got my clothes sweaty for nothing. At least let me stop the fight if I went through all that.