Tag: Peru

Peru

Meaning of FAMILY! Differences between South America and Northern Europe

Nina Jussila

Many people know that the Latinos live with their parents until they are a bit older (~35 or until they get married) and it’s normal to have grandparents or uncles and aunts living in the same house. It’s quite different when comparing it to Finland, where most of the people leave home when they are 18-19 years old. For example, I myself left home when I was 17 to study in another city. And when our parents/grandparents get old, we might put them in care homes, where someone else will look after them.

Living in Peru really helped me to understand the difference between these two cultures. It made me understand how individualistic Finnish people are. For example, when I told people in Peru about the care homes, people asked me if I didn’t love my family and how could I do something like that because to them it sounded so cruel. Whereas, in Finland, I don’t think my mum would even want to live with me when she gets old as she wouldn’t want to bother me and she would want to have her own space as well. And this definitely doesn’t mean that I love her any less.

I know there are many aspects that are influencing this, like religion, but I think one even bigger influencer is the support from the government. In Peru, people cannot move away from their parents’ place when they start their studies as it would be financially impossible, whereas in Finland the education is free and the government gives us money to pay our rent and some other living costs like food. How crazy is that? Of course, because of these schemes, we have better opportunities to leave our homes earlier. But is this a good thing?

The dark side

Recently I have a read a lot of stories about young people who are lonely. They just don’t have any friends or other social networks. We have the same problem with elderly people. It is common that elderly people don’t have people to interact with, due to their families living too far away or their busy work and life schedules. Or like many grandmothers, whos friends might have passed away it can get quite lonely. This is a huge problem for us and it creates depression and a predisposition for other mental illnesses. This problem doesn’t exist in Latin America (or at least not on the same scale). They have large social networks and always someone from the family around to talk to and to share joys and sorrows, which is quite amazing.

Independence

Moving away from your parents does make you more independent, you learn to take responsibility for your own actions, you learn how to cook, to do laundry and take care of your own finances. Whereas I noticed that this is something that Peruvians learn a bit later (depending on their background of course). I worked with students where most of them had a maid at home, which is common in Peru as it’s not expensive to have one. Sometimes the maid came around a few times a week, sometimes she lived with the family. They normally cooked, did laundry and cleaned the house. This probably allowed the kids to be kids for longer, which is a good thing, but it didn’t encourage them to be independent.

People are more social in Peru, it’s normal to talk to a stranger in the park or someone on the streets. At least to wish good morning or good afternoon. I already miss that… Now when I am walking the streets, I just want to greet people, but I know people would think I am crazy. I also have this need to give everyone kisses on the cheek. I used to hate them when I first moved to Peru, but I learned to love them and I thought it was a great way to break the ice when meeting new people and when leaving it was a warm and personal way to say goodbye. Now when I am just waving from the corned and saying goodbye, I do miss that human touch and the love I got from my Peruvian friends!

Both of these ways have their pros and cons and I am grateful that I have had an opportunity to experience them both. It’s also important to understand that there are no right or wrong ways to interact, raise your children or treat your elderly. There are just different ways to do them and we can always learn from each other and respect the differences we have.

What does family mean to you?

* These are all my own observations and they are not based on any researched data

Peru

The concept of TIME for a Finnish girl in Peru

Nina Jussila

Time

One of the biggest challenges for me was the locals understanding of time. When I first moved to Peru I got frustrated a lot, because nothing started on time. At some point, I learned that I needed to chill out because if I was going to continue like a Finn I would just go crazy and probably make everyone else crazy as well. So, I learned that it’s normal for the classes to start 15 minutes late, or sometimes even 30 minutes. And that meant I could not plan my sessions with a tight schedule. And it’s not just the students, sometimes the experts are late too.

The cause of these delays is often the traffic, which is nonmoving at times and people tend to use this as an excuse for their tardiness, but sometimes they are late because of the “public transportation”.

Public transportation or the lack of it

Every morning I travelled to work in a combi. It’s like a small bus, but all of these combis are like small enterprises and there are no schedules for them. Every morning I went to the bus stop and waited, sometimes I waited 5 minutes, sometimes 30 minutes. So I understand that it’s difficult to plan your day when you don’t have a clue when the combis are coming or if they are coming at all.

Also, there are too many cars! More than 10 million people live in Lima and the problem is that it was not build for that many people. The middle class is growing, so more and more people have money to buy cars, which creates a challenge with the traffic. To travel even short distances can potentially take hours. I worked with some people who spent two hours in a combi to get to work and two hours to go back. So they spent four hours a day in a small combi that was probably way too full to even sit down.

The combis are cheap though, so that’s great. I only paid 1 Sol to go to work, which is equivalent to 25 cents, pretty much nothing. But as I mentioned earlier they are often too full and that makes them quite unsafe. I do hope that Lima will get proper public transportation at some point so that people can travel faster and more safely.

Back to the Time

The concept of time at work is one thing and time in a social situation is another. If a party starts at 6 pm, Finnish people try to be there at 6pm, British people arrive a bit later, maybe 6:30 pm, but Peruvians would arrive probably around 8-9 pm. And again, that’s absolutely normal for them. So it’s all about understanding the culture and accepting that people have a different understanding of time.

The funny thing is that now I am used to the more “relaxed” way of looking at it after living for almost two years in Peru, but now I am back in Europe so I need to get myself back to a more disciplined way of living. So when I am in Finland I need to arrive at the meetings a few minutes early and in the UK, I need to be there dead on.

The Concept of time