Day 7 - Going Out to Eat

Going out to eat

Going out to eat in Bolivia and the United States are so different from each other.  It is probably one of the easiest examples of how different our cultures are.

In the United States, if you go out to eat with friends or family, say to Chili’s or El Fenix, they will seat you right away, unless they are full, but usually quickly.  As you sit, someone is taking your drink order.  A few minutes later they are back and asking to take your meal order.  As an American, you expect to be ordering your meal within five minutes.  A restaurant isn’t good if they make you wait.  After your order is taken, you want it within ten minutes.  Most places will get it to you that quickly.  As Americans, we don’t stay in restaurants that long, often finishing our food thirty minutes after we get it.  When we are ready to go, we are ready to go and don’t want to wait on the check. 

A restaurant in the United States, for most of us, is a forty-five minute to hour long experience.  If you stay longer, look around the room and note how many leave within that period of time.

Bolivia is so different!

So in Bolivia you go out to eat with your friends, for a good steak dinner, or one of the new cool restaurants around town.  They will seat you right away, but it might take ten minutes to get a drink order and a menu.  Once you have a menu, don’t expect the waiter to hurry to your side, he will stay out of the way until you call him.  Once you have placed your order, it is not time to wait hungrily, it is time to enjoy the company of your friends, because they are going to cook your order from scratch.  That might take thirty minutes or even an hour.  When you are finished eating, the waiter will leave you alone until you request the check.  They might take the plates away, but the check waits on your request.  So a normal meal in Bolivia will take two hours. 

Here is the difference between the two places.  In America we are always in a hurry.  If we go to a fast-food restaurant, we expect to be gone in five minutes.  Even when we go to a restaurant and sit down, we want it done in a hurry.  Going out to eat with friends in Bolivia is time to spend enjoying your friends, talking, laughing, getting to know them better.  What better way to enjoy friends than to sit around a nice meal and relax?

I’m not going to condemn the way things are done in the United States, because each culture is different, but we can learn from each other.  The next time you go out to eat with some friends or your family, don’t worry about the food.  Enjoy the company.  God has blessed you with these people for a reason, so enjoy them (and the food tastes better when you are not stressed about getting it so quickly).

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing we will be content with that.  1 Timothy 6:7-8