Perfectly on time….

Why wouldn't you carry a goat in a bag on your bike?

Africa time remains a mystery to me. I know that it means “Don’t expect people to be on time” but it seems there’s so much more of a precise system to it than that. We were coordinating with the VHTs at our training on Tuesday about when we would meet them in the field. Our on the ground coordinator, Mr. C, gave a stern, threatening speech that they absolutely must be there on time to not waste his time and to respect us (the volunteers), the community, the project, and themselves. I’m usually an on time person but after this speech I would have checked my alarm three times to make sure it was set right for the next day (if I used an alarm here…but I’m oh so fortunate to have the roosters who ensure I never sleep past 6:30). We left agreeing we would meet the VHTs at 10:00 am the next morning and Mr. C would pick me and the two other girls up at 9:40 to drive us to the meeting location. Mr. C even requested we wait outside so that precious minutes were not wasted…

Well the next morning at 10:40 we were still standing outside waiting. We had not heard from Mr. C and when we finally called him he said “Don’t worry, I’m on my way!” Eventually he came tearing around the corner in his little car and as soon as we piled in we raced off to the meeting location already over an hour late. The other girls and I worried that the VHTs would have already left on their home visits or perhaps given up for the day. When we finally got to the site at 11:15 we thought that’s what occurred when neither of the two VHTs were there. However 30 seconds later both VHTs arrived from opposite directions, perfectly on time to meet us an hour and fifteen minutes late.

They all seem to understand the system perfectly - always showing up exactly when the other person does, never at the agreed upon time. We, however, continue to go outside at exactly the agreed upon time every morning to begin our wait for Mr. C.

An Internally Displaced Persons Camp where we did data collection