Diva Martnez Laverde Section 5 19 january 26, 2014

Two values for comprehending Colombian culture

Culture is the set of values and costums that are distinctive of certain groups of people with something in common, like religion or country. This set is the basis of what is considered good, bad, desirable or loyable inside each society , and can change radically between these groups. Despite this is widely know, when people travel, they might forget how important it is to know thoose values in order to avoid feeling offended or uncomfortable with natives behavior, or making them feel that way. In Colombian culture, specifically, there are two particular values that Colombian people share, and that could represent an issue for foreigners when interacting with them: first value concerns the importance of family through life ;and second one, the flexibility with which time is treated. To begin with, family over most things is one of the most important values to Colombians; thereby, it is a structure that is present in almost every aspect of their life. Family, as nucleus of society, is already relevant in many cultures; but depending on each, it is a structure that disintegrates quickly. A known example is the fact that teenagers leave their homes being 16 18 years old in USA. In Colombia that does not happen, since children stay with their parents much longer, sometimes even after

having a professional title. And once they leave, sons, brothers and parents have a continuous communication and support each other, with no matters of how far they are. That kind of cohesiveness is pretty typical of Colombian culture, and responds to the legacy of catholic rules, from which family must stay together. Other examples of this are the tendency of spending holidays with aunts and uncles, cousins, godfathers and grandparents and the fact that people try to solve their economic difficulties going first to brothers and cousins, than going to a bank. Comprehending this value is fundamental because foreigners may relate such behavior to immaturity when in this culture, such idea is not usual. The second value relates to the way time is thought. Time is treated with great flexibility by Colombian people, specially in informal relationships. The easiest way of noticing this is looking at the expressions used to talk about time, in which we find ya , en un momento and ahorita. When someone in Colombia says ya understood like in this moment it usually expresses time-slots like in a few minutes or later , like before tomorrow. Examples of this are ya estoy saliendo ( im leaving) in which the person who says it most of the time, might not be even ready to leave. A more complex example is in a moment or ya va whose meaning literally would be right now/ in this precise moment but is used to express somewhen near now. A third example that results hard to live with to foreigners is the expression ahorita ( also right now in popular speech ) which means no determined time, neither a tacit time span. So, if someone tells you ahorita lo hago (ill do it now) it could take minutes, hours, days or even weeks before that task is finished. To clarify, this is not

seen as good (hardly seen as bad) but is accepted, used and poorly criticized by people in this country, so it could lead to serious misunderstandings with foreign people. Colombian culture, as any other, has a lot of values that shape what is believed to be good, accepted or bad; as seen with these two values. And as well as any other, if someone intends to stay enough time in this country, it is important to know and understand its values to relate with natives in a respectful manner.