Day's Diary

April 16, 2007 ~ A Patient People

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Experience is teaching me that the Malawians are a very patient people. This is evidenced in a number of ways. It also has a great bearing on how they view time. In Pittsburgh we have joked with our Malawian brothers and sisters about the difference between American time and Malawian time. This is something that goes much deeper then just checking a watch for the beginning of a meeting. It rests within an understanding of timing more than telling time.

Malawians are willing to wait for time and to wait in time. The other day, a carver came to my house at 3 p.m. I wasn’t home when he arrived. In fact, I had told him the day before that I wouldn’t be and he said he would come and wait. That is exactly what he did. I didn’t get home until almost 6 p.m. and he was waiting. I was concerned that he had waited all that time, when I had told him I wouldn’t be here. I was concerned that he had wasted all that time waiting. He wasn’t. He didn’t consider it a waste of time. Waiting, he told me, is part of life. He is right, here in Malawi. Whether it is at the bank or in the grocery store or at the market, waiting is a part of life. I made the mistake (by American standards) of going to the bank on Saturday morning. The bank is open from 8 to noon on Saturdays. That is a prime time for working folks to do their banking, and I think most of the working folks of Zomba were at the bank that morning. There were three lines and each of them was at least 20 people long. The lines snaked around each other, to make room for everyone. It took over an hour to get to the window, and I was in the shortest line. No one pushed; no one complained; no one left in frustration. Everyone waited quietly and patiently for his or her turn.

Time and patience are wrapped together here. Everything takes much longer to do than it does in America, so people have become adjusted to that and their expectations follow. We are not patient in the States. We want everything done quickly and on our time schedule. Here, people work on a different time schedule. There is no such thing as “fast food.” There is “take away,” but that is not fast. It only means the restaurant will prepare it for you to take with you. It will still take the same amount of time to prepare. There are on shortcuts. Malawians don’t expect “fast” because that is not their experience in anything. I have 45 students to use 18 computers and they wait patiently for their turn. They are thrilled to have time to work on the computer, so they are willing to wait. That is really the case with many things here that we take for granted in the States. During computer class the other day, the power went out. That ended the computer class, from my perspective, but no one of the 45 students left. I teased that it was because it was raining so hard outside that at least they were dry in the computer room. One of the students just smiled and said, “No, we just know that the power will come back on eventually.” They are used to waiting for the power. It goes out regularly and often, and he is right, it always comes back on. It is just a matter of time. So they waited, and about half an hour later it came on. Then they dutifully went back to working on the computers.

Time is just a marker when you are patient. On Wednesday, the internet person said he would send someone “tomorrow.” To me, that meant within the next 24 hours. That constitutes “tomorrow,” at least in America. When I made mention of the fact that the person hadn’t come, one of my Malawian colleagues helped me understand Malawian time keeping. Tomorrow does not necessarily mean a 24 hour time period. It might, but more likely it might mean sometime in the near future, maybe 24 hours or 48 hours or 72 hours or… You get the idea. Tomorrow means the future, not a number of hours. So when someone says, “T’ona na mawa,” (See you tomorrow) what they are really saying is “See you in the near future.” It is much like us saying, “I’ll be with you in a minute,” when we know it will be several minutes before we get to that person. Just broaden that out to hours or days, or weeks and you are beginning to get a grasp of Malawian time.

We were talking at tea today about Malawian patience, and I remarked that it is a virtue. Silas commented that is true, but that a virtue can also be a weakness when it excuses not getting things done. It is the old adage that our strength is also our weakness, two sides of the same coin. Just as determination can also be seen as stubbornness, patience can also be seen as indifference. So when my geezer when out on a Monday and that Thursday a repairman came to look at it, was it patience or indifference that took the time? When it took until the next Thursday to get the replacement, what was it? I suggest it is not indifference; it is Malawian time. A patient person sees time differently. He is willing to wait, and expects that others will be too. That is Malawian patience.