Cypriot people have difficulty keeping the time.
I first discovered this when I was a little girl – my mum and dad would constantly argue about what time to leave the house to arrive at an event we had been invited to. My dad would hold the invitation in his hand, wave it frantically about in the air and shout at my mum “it says here it starts at 8pm, so we’ll leave at 8pm.” My mum would throw her hands up in the air and exclaim “how does that make sense?! If it starts at 8pm surely we should leave at 7.45pm?” My dad’s reply would make perfect sense to him – “but they are Kypreie, they will not even start till 8.30 if we’re lucky!” So my dad’s logic would be to be late as the inviters would be late themselves.
My mum devised a plan to combat these situations. She would hide all invitations and tell him a fake time. If an event began at 8pm she would tell him it began at 7.30pm, that way they would leave early and arrive on time. I take after my mum. I believe if you tell someone a time, you should keep it. My time is precious to me and I treat other people’s time the same way, with respect. Cypriots haven’t learnt that yet. You go to an ‘appointment’ at the Dr’s and it is not met – the Dr is having coffee. You take a flight with Cyprus Airways and it is late – the pilot is having a siesta, you wait for people to turn up and they are late – they are talking to the yidosina. But it’s not called being late, it’s called being Cypriot.
I do to my friends what my mum used to do to my dad – I tell them a fake time. If I want them round at 7pm I tell them 6.30pm – they still manage to be late but then they are only half an hour late not an hour late!
I’m not sure why foreign time is different to English time? Is it due to the same gene that Cypriots use to drive? The ‘I don’t give a donkey’s ass’ gene, or is it the ‘siga siga’ gene, or maybe even the ‘Greeks invented everything so I can do what I want’ gene? Whatever it is, if you are a non-Cypriot making a ‘rendevouz’ with a Cypriot, then take my mum’s advice and fake-time it, unless you want to be waiting alone for hours! :o)
