I'm
not sure who decided to put Ghana on the 00:00 time zone but that was
a stroke of genius. This is a country where time means nothing, time
is literally 00:00. The average Ghanaian's concept of time is hard to
explain. For any given event, people are either likely to be
outrageously early or frustratingly late. Very few if any at all will
be on time. There's no known formula to calculate how early or how
late people will be.
During
my research for this article, I came across a previously undiscovered
document that stated that Albert Einstein first came up with his
famous relativity theory after being frustrated by a Ghanaian who was
always randomly late from what could be a few minutes to a few hours.
One day out of frustration, Einstein just screamed, “DO YOU THINK
TIME IS RELATIVE?”, and the Ghanaian, nonchalantly, replied, “Yes”.
When
there are queues or food (or any kind of freebies) involved, most
people will hours early. For example, the Presidential Elections was
supposed to start at 07:30 on December 7, 2012. At some polling
stations, long winding queues had already formed as at 23:00 December
6, 2012. People had brought mattresses from their home and were
sleeping in queues. Meanwhile, at that time, the election officials
were in their homes sleeping soundly. People were over 12 hours early
for the polls! At 07:30 when the election officials were supposed to
be at the station, most of them were no where to be found. Voters
were 12 hours early, officials were 2 hours late at some stations.
People would be late for weddings but slip out of the church early to
the reception hall just so the can get a good place to sit when the
refreshment is being shared.
Ghana
Commercial Bank (GCB) have given the popular saying, “Time is
Money” a whole new meaning. Long queues, poor network and slow
tellers have combined to create a unique “Time Sink”. Customers
waste long periods of time just to withdraw their own money.
Sometimes, after waiting long hours, they are left disappointed and
have to come back later to endure the same frustration.
I
remember being broke in the University (KNUST) and getting a cal from
my Dad that he had sent me some money through GCB. I went to meet a
long “snaking” queue in the small banking hall. After waiting for
about two hours the queue had barely moved. A teller told us later
that the network was having problem and would be fixed soon. Another
two hours would pass and out of frustration many people left the
bank. I was too broke to go back so I kept waiting till it was left
with about 30 people in the bank and the network mysteriously started
working. After 4 hours of waiting I finally got my money. With GCB,
“It Pays To Wait”, literally.
Being
late is a socially accepted norm, in fact being on time seems strange
to most people. Christians especially are notorious for being late.
Sometime ago, doctor was invited to my church to give a talk. The
talk was supposed to be at 19:00. He was there 10 minutes to time and
no one was there. He waited till 19:30 then left. 20:00 and people
started trickling into the church and people were actually surprised
to hear the doctor had actually come on time and couldn't wait for
them. Instead of the elders chastising the congregation, they were
angry at the doctor (who was supposed doing a talk for free) for
leaving.
I
was watching a documentary about lateness in Ghana on TV3 a while
back and a gentleman was asked why he was often late to work. The man
said every morning, there was a lot of traffic on the route that led
to his work place so he usually waited till the traffic had reduced
before he left the house (he worked at the Ministries). I remember
laughing for quite a while. When I was doing my National Service (in
the public sector) I found that this was a common practice. Someone
didn't come to work early because the porridge seller in his area
came at 08:00 so he had to wait and buy some before work. Someone had
to listen to sports news at 07:30 before coming to work. Everyone
seemed to have a 'valid' reason for coming to work late but the
moment it was 17:00 they were out. No one had a reason to stay any
longer than they had to.
Scheduling
an appointment can sometimes seem like bargaining in the market. What
time can we meet, and people will say, “3, 3:30, 4”. If you ask
what specific time the person won't have a clue about what you mean
by “specific”. After giving you this strange time range, the
person would most likely show up for the appointment at 4:30.
Time
and tide might wait for no man but most Ghanaians don't care. In
fact, most people just don't have time for time. If time can't wait
for the Ghanaian, the Ghanaian doesn't care. After all, “Time is
Relative”.
