African Time
During our wedding over 15 years
ago, my late father-in-law walked in through the side door into waiting room
where the wedding party was awaiting to be ushered into the main reception
hall. Without much hesitation and as if to respond to the anxiety inside me that
we were over one hour late – “Africans have time, white people have watches”.
While this did not offer much consolation, I reflected a bit on the thought
that we did not have to be anxious because “we have time”.
I almost forgot about this thought
from my father-in-law, until a couple of days ago during a dinner with two
American friends. One them – Benjamin made the point that his experiences in
Uganda in the last 5 years or so has thought that Ugandans and consequently
Africans invest “more time into relationships” than make commitments to be “on
time”. So Benjamin will have us believe that rather than keep our commitments
to an appointment, we kept our commitments to relationships.
Well, my immediate thought was that
this was another justification to the some of the bad habits that some of us
have developed. People will commit to a meeting and conveniently show up late
with all sorts of excuses – “well you know, it rained...”, “the jam (as in
traffic jam) was heavy,” and of course “it’s African time”. The truth is that
it is neither African time nor bad weather; it is people showing up late.
My experience – from Kigali to Cape
Town – is that you run into folks who do not intend to keep their appointments.
I have had account managers who will sit at their desks 15 minutes to their
appointments and act very surprised when reminded of their meeting commitment
at the top of the hour.
So what is African time? Why are we so casual to keeping time? Why is
“African time” the only time that is inconsistent with keeping our
commitments?. According to Wikipedia “African time (or Africa
time) is the perceived cultural tendency, in most parts of Africa, toward a more relaxed attitude to time. This is sometimes used in a pejorative
sense, about tardiness in appointments, meetings and events.[1] This also includes the more leisurely, relaxed,
and less rigorously-scheduled lifestyle found in African countries, especially
as opposed to the more clock-bound pace of daily life in Western
countries.[2] As such it is similar to time orientations in
some other non-Western culture regions”. Others say “The appearance of a simple
lack of punctuality or a lax attitude about time in Africa, may
instead reflect a different approach and method in managing tasks, events, and
interactions. African cultures are often described as "polychronic,"[3][4] which means people tend to manage more than one
thing at a time rather than in a strict sequence. Personal interactions and
relationships are also managed in this way, such that it is not uncommon to
have more than one simultaneous conversation.[5] An African "emotional time
consciousness" has been suggested which contrasts with Western
"mechanical time consciousness".[6]
I believe somewhere in the positions above is that real truth and
that is to there is no such thing as African time. If anything, “African time”
falls in the same waste basket of all the excuses we give for why service
delivery is at a standstill. My barber who we made an appointment with us in
Kampala not so recently, showed up a full hour late and of course reminded my 3
kids and I about the morning drizzle as his excuse. My 11 year old promptly
reminded us that that was the same thing a very high ranking government
official did during a visit to their school. And because the official was very
senior, no phones or newspapers were allowed. My son and the rest of the school
were kept waiting for over two hours. But in that case, the senior government
official did not give any explanations. People in attendance were
telepathically informed that it was “African Time”.
And as African Literary prize
winner, Victor Dlamini reminds us “There is truly nothing more annoying that to
receive an invitation to an up-market event and, when you arrive at the venue,
there is hardly anyone there, not even the host. Invariably, if you bother to
call them to find out why they are late, they tell you that they are around the
corner, or the perennial favorite, they are five minutes away. Of course, that
always turns out to be untrue and you end up waiting and wondering why they did
not just choose a time they could manage”
However, the good news is that we
can change. We can decide as individuals to take responsibility for our
actions. We can decide to be on time regardless of the weather or geographic
location you find yourself. After all, as we are often reminded, “we are a
product of our choices and not our circumstances” – this is true for us as it
is for those who make commitments and keep them.
Francis Egbuson
Kampala, Uganda
2007
