‘Ahorita’: Does it mean ‘in five minutes’ or ‘in five hours’?

BBC collaborator Susannah Rigg helps us to understand the word “Ahorita”, a Mexican connotation that could mean “right now”, “in five minutes” or “in five hours”. To get the meaning of this expression you don’t have to be fluent in Spanish, but rather fluent in Mexican culture.

When I first set foot on Mexican soil, I spoke relatively good Spanish. I was by no means fluent, but I could hold a conversation. So when I asked a local ice-cream seller in downtown Guadalajara when he expected a new delivery of chocolate ice cream, and he said ‘ahorita’, which directly translates to ‘right now’, I took him at his word, believing that its arrival was imminent.

I sat near his shop and waited, my Englishness making me feel it would be rude to leave. Half an hour passed and still no ice cream arrived, so I timidly wandered back to the shop and asked again about the chocolate ice cream. “Ahorita,” he told me again, dragging out the ‘i’ ‒ “Ahoriiiiita”. His face was a mix of confusion and maybe even embarrassment.

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I was torn. Waiting longer wasn’t appealing, but I felt it was impolite to walk away, especially if the ice cream was now being delivered especially for me. But finally, after waiting so long that I’d built up an appetite for dinner, dark clouds appeared overhead and I made a rush for the nearest bus to take me home. As I left, I signalled up at the sky to the ice cream seller to let him know that I obviously couldn’t wait any longer and it really wasn’t my fault. His face was, once again, one of total confusion.

As I sat on the bus, rain pattering on the windows, I replayed the conversation in my head and decided indignantly that the ice cream seller was a liar.

This incident faded from my memory until years later when I came back to live in Mexico. I discovered that cracking what I came to call the ‘ahorita code’ took not a fluency in the language, but rather a fluency in the culture.

So, if you are planning to visit (or move to) Mexico, you need to change your attitude towards time dramatically.

Don’t worry so much about being late for an appointment (it´s OK of you’re on time though), but when if you’re not, don’t panic. And don’t get frustrated when you fin yourself waiting for a plumber who may arrive in the next five minutes or the next five hours, keep in mind that the payoff is feeling far less controlled by time.

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Source: http://www.bbc.com/

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