African Time

The other weekend my wife and I were running mad. We had a formal function to attend at 18:30 but at 18:00 we were on the other side of town in casual gear. We made a mad rush home to find a blackout. We quickly dressed in the dark and made it to the function at 18:50 only to find the function had not started yet. We asked an organizer who said that he hall was half full and that they were waiting for some more people to come so the proceedings could start. I felt bad that I had contributed to this delay but was a bit more pissed off with those who had not arrived yet.

A week earlier I attended the commissioning of a new printer at a local print shop. The function started an hour late because there were only five of us at 5pm, the time the function was meant to start. By 6pm there were in excess of fifty people.

Today my wife was attending a lunch scheduled to start at noon. At 12:15 there only a handful of people and table cloths were still being laid out and cutlery was nowhere to be seen. The function only started after 1pm!

The list of functions that start late because either people or guests of honor arrive late is endless and I have attended many. Sadly the organizers of such events let the culprits off the hook too many times saying ‘after all this Africa, we follow African time’ or some other flimsy excuse like that. African Time is an attitude of the past and should be buried in a very deep grave like all similar attitudes and things of the past (Off Topic: Actually we should consider burying JZU Tembo in the grave too!). It’s time we learnt to kept time. If we can’t for one reason or another, we should accept the consequences other than punish my wife who went to lunch on a very empty tummy or me who had to wait for over an hour before I could wet my throat with a very cold beer at the printer launch!