Time is Money

I'm an American. I come from the land where time is money. At home, I tap my foot in front of the microwave, quadruple-task, and feel guilty when on the rare occasion that I do sit down in front of the television I'm not at least holding something that I could use in the pursuit of productivity - a book, my laptop, etc...

I have traveled the entire length of the Brazilian Amazon by boat. From Manaus, I got on a boat to Belem - where the river meets the Atlantic. The trip was supposed to take five days and four nights. I ended up taking five days and six nights.

From Leticia to Manaus, I had revealed in inaction. Stared for hours at the forest - completely content. By the third hour aboard this boat, my Americanism resurfaced. Before we parted,Conn gave me a book on WWI. I've read it. I've also sang through every Disney movie I've ever seen, written out emails to everyone of my acquaintance, and exhausted the battery of myMP3 player. It's day three.

Last night, while discussing our boredom Warren, a fellow English-speaker from South Africa, and I made an interesting discovery. Of all the people on board, we could identify the tourists not by their appearance or speech, but because the only people reading were Westerners. Warren is reading Don Quixote, the Canadian Wuthering Heights, Me The Western Front 1914-1918, and the Italian his guidebook. We all come from places where - not to America's extreme Warren tells me. He was quite impressed when he boarded the train from Miami to North Carolina two months ago, that everyone without exception held either a laptop or a newspaper - time is money.

The Brazilians seem to have quite a different attitude. The Italian calls them simple people. I can't imagine boarding a boat without something to occupy my time. Even on he first boat I read everyday - not nearly as much as this trip, but everyday. Two weeks into my travels I stopped saying things were better than others in regards to the way the world works or how people in other places see it. I'll leave judgement up to the One able to do it justly. However, if one can make deductions about a country's citizens by observing the behaviors of one boat load of people, I will dare to say that they were never told as children that time is money.