Killing time

Trying to coordinate a visit to Kisii, the biggest town within easy distance of our place, is always a nightmare. Even on a simple trip involving no more than the bank and shopping. I felt sorry for Ian and Hilda today, as they ended up with a major trip involving multiple people and a number of activities. Their day involved; (for those with experience of this journey a drum roll would be appropriate here), going to the bank so that Mary our manager could make a money transfer to pay for a greenhouse, taking a young mum and her son for treatment to the boy’s ear, buying a bicycle for one of the church leaders to allow him to expand his pastoral round, taking one of our girls for an eye test and a new pair of glasses, buying material for school uniforms for the Agriculture College students, buying text books for the school and Agriculture College, buying bibles for church members, some general shopping for supplies, and buying a mobile phone . And those are just the things that I knew about. On the surface this to do list might not seem very demanding. But then TIA, (this is Africa), and the majority of the jobs involve at the very least an element of negotiation and clarification.

For instance. Mary dropped our ‘book order’ off at the book shop as soon as she got to Kisii, hoping that the books would be picked, packed and pucker at going home time. Everybody was ready to leave, (Duncan, who had gone with Mary to learn the ropes at the bank, Joyce, who needed the glasses, the lady and her son, Ian, Hilda, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all…). Mary was kept another hour while the book order was processed. The most disarming thing about all this is that you just sort of get into it. (You don’t have much choice). Ian said the book shop owner was very nice and asked him to sign the visitors’ book, (you couldn’t imagine that in Waterstones). If the picking and packing went anything like normal about three people would have been involved in checking to see if the books were in stock, then locating them, stacking them on a table before another person put them in a box tied up by the last member of the despatch team.

There is a point to this rant. I did, really, have a genuine reason for not going to Kisii today, (fine tuning the school and College timetables). I am, for one reason or another, still pretty much in the Western ‘to do list frame of mind’ at the moment. I haven’t got into the more African ‘could do’ mindset yet. (To be honest I rarely do – there’s just so much to do!). From the Western point of view taking the whole day to do a bit of shopping might seem to be indicative of the ‘obvious’ root causes of African poverty and lack of development. Inefficiency, poor planning and inability to 'get things done'. To really believe that would be disingenuous. From a Western point of view all of these things might seem patently true. From another point of view the Westerner’s attitude shows up typical Western arrogance, impatience and unwillingness to see an everyday activity as an opportunity for a relationship. An opportunity for a negotiation. A conversation to be had. The West’s ‘sue me if it’s wrong’, shelf edge pricing mentality completely excludes any kind of bartering. The Western way of shopping is mercifully quick but monumentally impersonal. In a culture where time is the only thing you have an excess of taking a long time over everything isn't a problem. Taking the Western view of time and time management might make short work of the to do list, but I have a nagging feeling that it can short change us on time spent with people.