I've always been fascinated by how different cultures view things like time.

A perfect example of how different people see the same thing in different ways occurred in Peru in mid 1971.

I was working for Another Seismic Company on a jungle portable crew in Peru. The helicopter contractor was the Peruvian Air Force (FAP).

The clash came when an Indonesian-born Dutch party manager butted heads with a Peruvian Air Force crew-chief.

Our story begins with me, sitting in the mess hall, scarfing down eggs and some unidentifiable meat and nursing a hangover. The party manager, one Jan vanMelsen came in and said to me, "Get your stuff. You're going to the line on the first flight of the 205."

Since I'd been sitting around bored for a couple of days, I sprang from my seat and sprinted to my quarters to get my bag and get aboard. I knew that the helicopter drivers were not patient with latecomers.

I went out to the helipad and put my bag in the chopper and started climbing in, thankful that the engine wasn't running, and that I wasn't late. The crew chief looked at me and said, "Where are you going ?" I replied that I was going to the line to relieve the guy who was there.

"Not in this helicopter." he said. I asked why not, and he replied that the chopper was down for maintenance. Turns out that the tail rotor had to be replaced. I thought "Good for them. Flying over jungle in a single-engined aircraft is dicey at best, so I'm glad they are being careful."

I took my bag back to my tent and went to tell the p.m. that he needed to schedule me for another helicopter, owing to the fact that the one I was supposed to use was unavailable. Of course, carefully - plotted heli schedule for all the other aircraft was now in the toilet.

Now, bear in mind that the p.m.'s primary language was Dutch, or perhaps gutter Javanese, and he spoke English pretty well. His Spanish was, to put it mildly, execrable.

He said to me, "Come with me, and we'll find out how long the helicopter will be down." I said I would.

When we got there, he told me in English, "Ask him what he needs to do.", so I asked in Spanish what it was. The crew chief said that they had to change out the tail rotor because it was out of time.

I translated this back into English, the p.m. (in his head) translated it into his language, thought about it for a bit and then said, "Ask him how long it will take." I did that, and the answer was, "About a month."

Now the fun really started.

When I told the p.m. what the crew chief had replied, he started to get red in the face. He said to me, "A MONTH ? TO CHANGE A BLOODY TAIL ROTOR ? WHY SO LONG ?"

I duly relayed to the crew chief what the p.m. had asked. By this time the crew chief was beginning to become a bit annoyed at the p.m.'s attitude. He couldn't speak English (even though he could read it), but he understood tones of voice and volume pretty well. Even so, he was still pretty calm.

He explained to me why it would take so long: "First I will radio the headquarters company in Lima to tell them that I must change out the tail rotor. Then they will fill out a purchase order [that will take about a week ] and make application to the Bank of the Nation for the dollars to pay for a new tail rotor. Once the request has been granted [ that usually takes a couple of weeks] and the Air Force has hard currency with which to pay for the tail rotor ( our credit's no good with Bell since the revolution), they will put in a purchase order with Bell in Fort Worth.

Bell will then ship the tail rotor [it takes a week or so for them to process the order and locate the part ] to a bonded warehouse in Lima. They will hold it [for a week or so ] at the warehouse until the Air Force has paid for the part. When that's done, Bell will instruct the warehouse to release the part to us, and headquarters will ship it out to us. Once it arrives I'll install it.

All in all, it will take about a month."

I translated all this back to the p.m., who promptly asked, "HOW BLOODY LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN THAT YOU HAD TO CHANGE THE TAIL ROTOR ?"

By now, when I translated the question into Spanish, the crew chief's patience was wearing pretty thin. Bear in mind that he was a senior master sergeant with about 20 years' service and a helicopter mechanic to boot. The pilots, mostly young lieutenants were scared of him. He grabbed the Bell manual and stabbed the page with his finger as he spoke, "It says RIGHT HERE, 'The tail rotor must be replaced after 1000 hours of flight time.' as any damn fool ought to be able to tell."

The p.m.'s Spanish was sufficient to understand what he had said, at least in general terms. He turned to me, red-faced and with a small vein throbbing in his forehead, and said, "ASK HIM WHY HE DIDN'T ORDER THE TAIL ROTOR BEFORE NOW !"

The crew chief's reply was, "I DIDN'T ORDER IT BEFORE NOW, BECAUSE I DIDN'T NEED IT BEFORE NOW. THE [deleted] HELICOPTER COMPLETED 1000 HOURS YESTERDAY AFTERNOON ON THE FLIGHT BACK TO CAMP. NOW IT HAS 1000 HOURS, AND NOW I'M ORDERING THE TAIL ROTOR !!"

I took advantage of this last exchange to quietly slip away and sort of amble back towards the mess hall. When I left them, the p.m. was cursing the crew chief in Dutch, and the crew chief was returning the compliment in Spanish.