Concept of Jamaican Time

Every country has its own time zone, it's relative to GMT right, or something of the sort. Well, that is not the time i am referring to here. Jamaican time is a rather erratic, unpredictable relative term. However, over the many years that I have had to live here, I have developed a standard, my way of understanding Jamaican Time.

Now, I would imagine, in most other countries (imagine because I have not spent enough time in any other county but Jamaica in other to discern what their concept of time is) 10 minutes means ten minutes, soon means, shortly probably 10 minutes, half an hour means 30 minutes, 10am means 10am and so forth, but in Jamaica, NO WAY, don't be fooled. Let me attempt to break it down for you

Time in Jamaican terms

5-minutes: well surprisingly enough, i don't know if its because we didn't learn time in basic schools, but five minutes can run you anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes...or even more (there is always an option for "even more").

10-Minutes: same thing, anything over ten minutes usually about half an hour or more (so keep adding about 10 minutes to the time given, to get the actual time that you will be waiting)

(Here is my favourite) Soon: now, get this, "soon" is actually the longest time frame possible in Jamaican time- soon usually means anything, but its never sooner than later. Take this example: a friend of mine called me one evening to say he's coming to pick me up, "he'll soon be there", i got ready, hurried no less, and then..........about 3 hours later i got a call, "I'm five minutes away i soon reach". Now i was a bit concerned because, from our previous arrangement soon turned out to be 3 hours and if he was 5 minutes away and soon come it meant that 5 minutes for him is actually 3 hours...lets check the calculation

soon come = 3 hours (we know that for a fact)
therefore if 5minutes= soon come
then 5 minutes = 3 hours. you followed right?....good

Next thing to understand when in Jamaica and dealing with time:

1. someone says they will pick you up at 4:30pm it means they will be leaving their house between 4:30 and 4:45, not that you will actually be picked up at 4:30.

2. If something is set to start at 10:00am, getting there at 10:00 am will make you half an hour early, starts at 10:00am really means starts at 10:30 am but we saying 10:00 so that everybody will get there by 10:30, and then it will really start at 11:00am because of all the running around that has to be done when everybody actually gets there at 10:30.

3. If a party is Free BEFORE 11 it is a guarantee, that every Jamaican, him mother and him dog, is going to be there at 10...however, the gates to the venue will not be open until 11, so...i don't know how they work that out.

In any case, the point is, you need to be very aware of Jamaican Time, or else you will have a miserable time. This is factual data trust me on that one :)