Transkei Time.

More on the subject of being late. One reason not previously brought up before, is cultural. When we were in Transkei, most people there were late. There were also many reasons for this. One of them was simple; being largely a poor community especially out in the rural areas, many people had no clocks to tell the time.

For many the sun was their only clock. On sunny days they were often early but mostly there must have been mainly cloudy days, for they were nearly always late.

Many of the Churches in our circuit had different Preachers every week and very few of these men had their own transport and thus had to take what they call taxis, but what we call 12 and 16 seat mini buses (with up to 22 in them) that acted like our buses and not like our taxis.

In the rural areas, very few roads were sealed and thus difficult to traverse in wet weather and so many times the preacher never turned up or turned up late, thus the people, who all lived within walking distance of church, would wait till the preacher got there and rang the bell. Then they would get ready for church and come.

For the Xhosa people of Transkei, and most Africans for that matter, people are more important that events, so they are usually happy to wait until all the people are there before they start. To them the event, as important as it is, it is not as important as people, and therefore they wait.

Having said that, as more and more people have important jobs and their own transport, they are starting to become more time conscious than people orientated.

What about you? Which are you and which is best?

Again I think this is one of those situations that has to be evaluated on just about each and every situation. There will be times when people will be more important than events, but I think mostly, ways can be found to deal with those situations later most of the time, and keep to the agreed times as much as possible to you. What say you? Walter