My dear friend and colleague Allyson Backstrom, professor of chemistry at Midland Lutheran College, says it’s neither wise nor intelligent to make conclusions based on one-point data sets. But I’m no scientist; I’m a dreamer. I can conclude all kinds of things based on a one-time occurrence. And like any dreamy fool, I’ll announce my conclusions and wait for further clarification.
Based on a wedding that occurred this past Saturday, I’ve arrived at my Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: often—but not always—organized time known as a schedule is fluid and organic here. It follows naturally that I might or might not have attended that wedding.
The invitation came to me as a general announcement at 11:00 a.m. tea on Friday. This brings me to my first law of organized time: the Constancy of Tea, which says that eleven o’clock tea is constant and never changes during the work week. All office workers and faculty abandon their desks; John, the security guard leaves his post at the gate as do the plumber and electrician who moments earlier were sitting at a bench talking to John; Mama Victor and her cleaning crew set their mops against a wall, and I race out of my apartment. All converge at 11:00 to the dining hall where boiled tea in a heavy kettle waits for us with a large bowl of half-cakes.
On Friday 11:00 tea, Mr. Priva stood up and reminded everyone, first in Swahili then in English, that a lecturer at our college named Gidion was getting married. Mr. Priva came over to my table to make sure I understood that the college van would leave at 1:00 p.m. We repeated 1:00 p.m. several times. I understood, he understood, 1:00 p.m.
At 1:00 p.m. Saturday I stood in front of the main campus building where the only ones to show up besides me were two mockingbirds. At about 1:15, two young men appeared on the front steps, both in non-wedding jeans. After they exchanged a few words, one of them asked me where I was going. I said I’d shown up for the wedding, repeated “wedding” in Swahili. It turns out, one of them was the van driver hired to take us to the wedding and the other his friend. I asked where the others were. “Ah, this is African time,” the friend said. “We never come on time.”
Since I was the only to show, they decided it was a good time for tea.
This brings me to my next law in the Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: when something doesn’t happen according to schedule, it’s a good time for tea.
At the insistence of the van driver and his friend (“Please, come with us, Madam!”), I followed them to the men’s dormitory. It wasn’t as though I’d miss the van. The van driver introduced himself as Haji, the English-speaking friend was Hassan, and I was Jeanne whose head was full of thoughts about the impropriety of fraternizing with students and van drivers in a men’s dorm room. In Haji’s cramped room, I sat on the only desk chair, the other two stood beside me at the desk against the wall. I ate one boiled egg and the other two split the second boiled egg, and we all drank tea and ate half-cakes. As Haji cleaned up our dishes in the washroom, Hassan sat on the lower bunk of one bed with his head bent forward by the upper bunk, explaining to me that he was a frustrated author. I gave him some tips, and by 2:20 p.m. we were back at the main campus building where I discovered that the assistant to the bursar, Happy, was waiting for us. It’s always a good sign when Happy is waiting for you, as opposed to mockingbirds.
On the way to Moshi Town, I learned that the wedding started at 1:00 p.m. Our first stop though, was not at the church but downtown Moshi where we parked and found the secretary to the provost, Mama Cate, with her hair in curlers. After Mama Cate and Happy talked for a bit in Swahili, they urged me to go with Mama Cate to the hair dressers, Happy would go home and get ready for the wedding, and we would meet back at some point. It was 3:00 at this point, and if the wedding had really started at 1:00 p.m., surely it would be over. (I later learned that it ended at about 4:00.)
At the hair dresser’s, I sat on a chair with one of those hair dryer domes that I avoided by sitting closer to the chair’s edge, my head bent forward by the dome. The shop’s proprietor sat at the far end of the room on a stool. Between her legs another woman sat on the floor handing strands of fake copper-colored hair to the proprietor who braided them into endless rows along the scalp. Bits of black hair littered the floor along with paper and plastic packaging and a roll of black yarn that the only male hair dresser was using to tie up hair and secure an extended length of false hair. He also used a lot of goo to form complex curls in what looked like a gift-wrap bow.
Apparently—to my lack of surprise—no one had made an appointment. The room was crowded with people waiting. Occasionally someone walked in from the street with a plastic bag stuffed with wrinkled clothes. She pulled one out and held it up for those waiting under a dryer or on a couch or large stuffed chair. When one woman held up her hand, the merchant casually tossed the blouse to her and continued unpacking her merchandize.
At about 4:15 I followed Mama Cate out of the salon, her hair coiffed into a French knot, a strand of curled hair spiraling down from one temple. We stood by the Leopard Hotel and waited for Haji, Happy, and the van. (Hassan had left earlier.) Mama Cate made several calls to Haji who assured Mama Cate he was almost there.
This brings me to my next law of the Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: “almost there” means “not there.” It has no reference to time. I had a professor like this in graduate school. It was her way of encouraging me to keep going and not worry about the end, whatever the end may be. I think that definition works for Tanzania also.
About 20 minutes later, Haji really was there. Then it was time not to go to the wedding again, but to Mama Cate’s house so she could finish dressing. At Mama Cate’s house, I met many of her family, who came in an out of the living room where I watched what looked like a Tanzanian revival meeting on TV.
At 5:00, we arrived at the reception hall. We waited one hour for the wedding car to arrive and another hour for the wedding couple to enter the reception. But for most of the college folks, this was the real wedding, the thing worth attending. By 9:30 that night, the wedding attendants had sung and danced around the wedding car accompanied by a ten-piece brass band, and we’d waved our wedding handkerchiefs in rhythm to the brass band. The roasted goat, mouth stuffed with folded banana leaves, had danced along the red carpet on a rolling cart. The bride and groom had fed each other and their parents, and the guests had danced up the red carpet to offer gifts and shake hands with the bride and groom. Finally back at my apartment, my head literally hit the pillow.
I never saw Mr. Priva that day. One o’clock indeed.
Based on a wedding that occurred this past Saturday, I’ve arrived at my Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: often—but not always—organized time known as a schedule is fluid and organic here. It follows naturally that I might or might not have attended that wedding.
The invitation came to me as a general announcement at 11:00 a.m. tea on Friday. This brings me to my first law of organized time: the Constancy of Tea, which says that eleven o’clock tea is constant and never changes during the work week. All office workers and faculty abandon their desks; John, the security guard leaves his post at the gate as do the plumber and electrician who moments earlier were sitting at a bench talking to John; Mama Victor and her cleaning crew set their mops against a wall, and I race out of my apartment. All converge at 11:00 to the dining hall where boiled tea in a heavy kettle waits for us with a large bowl of half-cakes.
On Friday 11:00 tea, Mr. Priva stood up and reminded everyone, first in Swahili then in English, that a lecturer at our college named Gidion was getting married. Mr. Priva came over to my table to make sure I understood that the college van would leave at 1:00 p.m. We repeated 1:00 p.m. several times. I understood, he understood, 1:00 p.m.
At 1:00 p.m. Saturday I stood in front of the main campus building where the only ones to show up besides me were two mockingbirds. At about 1:15, two young men appeared on the front steps, both in non-wedding jeans. After they exchanged a few words, one of them asked me where I was going. I said I’d shown up for the wedding, repeated “wedding” in Swahili. It turns out, one of them was the van driver hired to take us to the wedding and the other his friend. I asked where the others were. “Ah, this is African time,” the friend said. “We never come on time.”
Since I was the only to show, they decided it was a good time for tea.
This brings me to my next law in the Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: when something doesn’t happen according to schedule, it’s a good time for tea.
At the insistence of the van driver and his friend (“Please, come with us, Madam!”), I followed them to the men’s dormitory. It wasn’t as though I’d miss the van. The van driver introduced himself as Haji, the English-speaking friend was Hassan, and I was Jeanne whose head was full of thoughts about the impropriety of fraternizing with students and van drivers in a men’s dorm room. In Haji’s cramped room, I sat on the only desk chair, the other two stood beside me at the desk against the wall. I ate one boiled egg and the other two split the second boiled egg, and we all drank tea and ate half-cakes. As Haji cleaned up our dishes in the washroom, Hassan sat on the lower bunk of one bed with his head bent forward by the upper bunk, explaining to me that he was a frustrated author. I gave him some tips, and by 2:20 p.m. we were back at the main campus building where I discovered that the assistant to the bursar, Happy, was waiting for us. It’s always a good sign when Happy is waiting for you, as opposed to mockingbirds.
On the way to Moshi Town, I learned that the wedding started at 1:00 p.m. Our first stop though, was not at the church but downtown Moshi where we parked and found the secretary to the provost, Mama Cate, with her hair in curlers. After Mama Cate and Happy talked for a bit in Swahili, they urged me to go with Mama Cate to the hair dressers, Happy would go home and get ready for the wedding, and we would meet back at some point. It was 3:00 at this point, and if the wedding had really started at 1:00 p.m., surely it would be over. (I later learned that it ended at about 4:00.)
At the hair dresser’s, I sat on a chair with one of those hair dryer domes that I avoided by sitting closer to the chair’s edge, my head bent forward by the dome. The shop’s proprietor sat at the far end of the room on a stool. Between her legs another woman sat on the floor handing strands of fake copper-colored hair to the proprietor who braided them into endless rows along the scalp. Bits of black hair littered the floor along with paper and plastic packaging and a roll of black yarn that the only male hair dresser was using to tie up hair and secure an extended length of false hair. He also used a lot of goo to form complex curls in what looked like a gift-wrap bow.
Apparently—to my lack of surprise—no one had made an appointment. The room was crowded with people waiting. Occasionally someone walked in from the street with a plastic bag stuffed with wrinkled clothes. She pulled one out and held it up for those waiting under a dryer or on a couch or large stuffed chair. When one woman held up her hand, the merchant casually tossed the blouse to her and continued unpacking her merchandize.
At about 4:15 I followed Mama Cate out of the salon, her hair coiffed into a French knot, a strand of curled hair spiraling down from one temple. We stood by the Leopard Hotel and waited for Haji, Happy, and the van. (Hassan had left earlier.) Mama Cate made several calls to Haji who assured Mama Cate he was almost there.
This brings me to my next law of the Theory of Relativity of Organized Time in Tanzania: “almost there” means “not there.” It has no reference to time. I had a professor like this in graduate school. It was her way of encouraging me to keep going and not worry about the end, whatever the end may be. I think that definition works for Tanzania also.
About 20 minutes later, Haji really was there. Then it was time not to go to the wedding again, but to Mama Cate’s house so she could finish dressing. At Mama Cate’s house, I met many of her family, who came in an out of the living room where I watched what looked like a Tanzanian revival meeting on TV.
At 5:00, we arrived at the reception hall. We waited one hour for the wedding car to arrive and another hour for the wedding couple to enter the reception. But for most of the college folks, this was the real wedding, the thing worth attending. By 9:30 that night, the wedding attendants had sung and danced around the wedding car accompanied by a ten-piece brass band, and we’d waved our wedding handkerchiefs in rhythm to the brass band. The roasted goat, mouth stuffed with folded banana leaves, had danced along the red carpet on a rolling cart. The bride and groom had fed each other and their parents, and the guests had danced up the red carpet to offer gifts and shake hands with the bride and groom. Finally back at my apartment, my head literally hit the pillow.
I never saw Mr. Priva that day. One o’clock indeed.
Jeanne, I can relate to your wedding experience, although we actually did get to witness the wedding ceremony, albeit 3+ hours later than the invitation indicated! Your rendition of the prelude brought back many memories. Thanks so much for sharing details about your time in Tanzania. Be assured every word will be read and appreciated!
ReplyDeleteAs the one who often objects to one-point data sets, I would like to clarify that I only object when the proverbial hypothesis is not formed and further testing is not conducted. I have every confidence that Jeanne is indeed a scientist at heart and will fully test her hypothesis and revise if needed.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, she may find that there are cultural versions of Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle.
Hi Jeanne, I've really enjoyed reading about your experiences in Tanzania. My husband and I are in the Peace Corps in St. Lucia, where we experience some of the same time phenomena. I'm sure you are familiar with island time. Our "almost there" is "just now." "Just now" means 2 days ago, 5 minutes ago, 2 hours from now, tomorrow. Really, anytime other than "just now."
ReplyDeleteAmber (Yancy) Palmeri
MLC '03