There Are No Straight Lines in Lima

I know I have only been here a week, and that my knowledge of Lima and its many cultures is limited. I realize that I am like Ransom in C.S. Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet": "He did not yet know things well enough to see them." But in order to know them, I must think on them.

I didn't expect Lima to be a completely different world. I expected different food, different etiquette, different norms, different relational standards. What I think I've come upon, though, are not different things, but a kind of other. Nothing, so far, has been able to fit in my different category. People here don't drive differently; they are working within another system entirely.

Or the children for example. I've found (and the Matthews also agreed) that it is terribly common here for children to whine and speak with incredibly loud and annoying voices - some describe it as a "child-run society". That would be different. Try as I may, though, I can't fit it into a category. Because as I watch Romina and Janella on a daily basis, I am awed by their understanding of the household as an economy. They make up their beds every morning without asking; they know if Martha is late getting home in the afternoon to start cooking and know how to do so; they quietly and joyfully obey their parents. What is this? For some reason, to me, I can't describe it as different, but as other.

Cultures don't seem to exist in some sort of file folder system of categorization. It's made up of so many nuances and mixed standards (that I didn't know you could mix) that it's almost hard to compare America and Lima.

Geez...what does that mean?

For those who have traveled...

Peruvians are very late people. It's sort of funny, because I struggle with being on time (as anyone who knows me at least superficially can affirm). Here, though, they are LATE. We're supposed to eat lunch at two, and Martha serves it at 3:30. We're supposed to then be at a birthday party at 4:00 and we get there at 6:00. :) It's mostly amusing, but then I think about the obvious connotations it has here in the states of disrespect, bad stewardship and self-centeredness.

There are several other cultural distinctives here in Peru that would also be considered bad in the States. For example, I've noticed that Peruvian children are generally more whiny and complain a LOT. One daughter I know whines with this incredibly annoying high-pitched sort of cry whenever she simply wants something. Not to say there aren't children who do not - or that there are not children in the States who do. Just that from my limited experience here in Peru living with a family, it's a tendency that is accepted as normal by many.

These things that are considered wrong or bad in America are normal here. But is that just cultural? Doesn't the Bible speak to these things? We're to do everything without complaining or whining; we put others before ourselves; we do everything as if for the Lord; we keep our word. Does that not rip away the neutrality of these things? That's question/thesis number one.

Question/thesis number two is this:
If these things ARE actually bad, and the Americans have it correct that people SHOULD be on time and shouldn't allow whining (for examples), then is it possible that the American culture has some sort of advantage over others (like Peru) in that since it was founded by Christians many of the norms are biblical?