I'm Late, I'm Late

When I lived in Berlin, some twenty years ago, there was a national survey on people's perceptions of acceptable delays before a  public transport bus, in big city traffic, was perceived to be late.  '3 minutes' was the response over Germany.  And so it was. You could leave the flat in the student hostel and, split second timing, arrive 2 minutes later at the bus stop in parallel with the bus. A marvel and miracle for me even then. 

Perceptions of time in Kenya, are, not surprisingly, very different.  Weddings start hours late.  Peremptory letters sent out by the school summoning the children and their driver (mother) to pre-dawn starts for orchestra tours up country may state that the bus will leave at 530am from the staff carpark, but no one but one German-conditionned, relatively recently arrived expat, feels themselves bound by that, not even the teacher who wrote the letter. 

I'm not a morning person at the best of times. In addition there's the perception that carjackers are more likely to be about pre-dawn, whereas, in fact, I think they are probably wrapped snug and warm in their duvets like everyone else.  So its a nervy wait, alone but for a grumpy Firstborn, in the dark in a deserted staff carpark at 515 am, till the organising teacher turns up at 600, and the busdriver has to be phoned, increasingly urgently, and eventually turns up, dishevelled, at 630.  You'd think I'd learn but somehow, punctuality seems hardwired now and I can't move with the dominant culture.

This week someone asked to meet up with me for a favour.  I phoned her to confirm our appointment, and she asked to shift it to another time, and a place far closer to her but 20 minutes drive away for me. Ok then.  I texted to confirm again that morning. No reply, which doesn't really mean anything in Kenya. Got there. Waited 20 minutes. Phoned her four times without response till she switched the phone off. But then, an hour later, by when I'd driven home, she phoned, unapologetic, 'I'm there now.  Where are you?'  'Well I'm back home because our appointment was an hour ago and I waited 30 minutes then left for my next meeting.'  'Oh.  Well come back now.' 'No, I've just driven home and have had enough for today.'  So we made a third appointment, of her choice again, - 8am on a Saturday morning. Clearly not a time of my choosing.

Off I trooped, grumpily, on PrimeLieInDay.  And waited, 15 minutes, alone. And phoned, to be clear and explicit that this was IT with me for favours for her.  To have her hang up one and a half sentences into my call. Still no apology. Still no woman.  Actually, no sense from her that having made an arrangement she felt any obligation to keep it or even flickering of guilt that she'd stood me up three times, each of her choosing.

At BigCorporate people do turn up on time for meetings, do believe that things agreed to, have to be done.  But it isn't a general belief with professional commitments here, I've discovered.  The internet service salesman who didn't come on Thursday as agreed, explained, when I tracked him down on Friday 'well, because it was raining.'  The student nominated for the prestigious scholarship who didn't turn up for his individual personal workshop to help hone his application, and in fact, when I phoned him two hours after our intended start time to find out where he was, he was still at his desk in the branch office five hours travel away. 'You didn't think to come? Or to let me know?'  'Oh I thought I'd come tomorrow instead, we're very busy here today.'

It's not that I've got overdemanding high standards I don't think. I've worked for a long time with students, hardly perceived to be the best-coordinated time managers of UK society.  I've even worked with Italian teenagers, 80 of them at a go. But this, here, now, - this tunnel vision which isn't just about punctuality but about a sense that anyone's priorities but your own have validity, even when specialist expertise or favours are being sought - well that, for me, is rock bottom.