Me, at a typical Ghanaian Function

The program was supposed to start at 09:00 but the time was changed to 11:00 the day before and people had to hurriedly call invited guests to change arrangements. The place wasn't too far from where I lived so I wasn't too bothered. I left my room at 10:00 knowing I should be there in 45 minutes max. The driver started moving in an unfamiliar direction and when I asked about it, he said it was a short cut. The journey that was supposed to be 45 minutes ended up being an hour and 20 minutes. Everyone had decided to take the short cut that day!

Ghanaian drivers and their "short cuts". Lol “@Amegaxi The taxi driver said this was a. "Short Cut". ... http://t.co/k87w1XElv6
— Naa ♥Q.U.E.E.N♥ (@Mzlianne) December 13, 2013

▪Frustrated me tweeting inside the taxi and one of my friend's response▪

It was my sister's induction into the Ghana Medical Association and I was peeved that I was going to be late. These were highly educated people and I knew they would be time conscious. I entered the auditorium at 11:25 and the program hadn't began. I also noticed that more seats were being brought in. Each inductee was supposed to have only two guest but some of them came with entourages. A very typical Ghanaian trait. The security at the gate couldn't drive them away so more chairs had to be brought.

When the program started, one of the executives took the stage and, “I'm sorry for the delay it was...” and the audience went, “...due to circumstances beyond our control”, and started laughing. It was all too familiar. All Ghanaian programs seem to begin with this excuse.

There was a choir there and the MC asked them to sing. The music was really good but it was obvious they were being used as a time wasting strategy after their fifth song. By now the audience was getting impatient. It was 12:10 and what they had come to see hadn't started yet. It turned out they were waiting for the members of the council to arrive and finally they did, at 12:20.

The program started and there was this man in front of me who just refused to sit down. He was carrying his iPad over his head like he was at a political demonstration. I tried so many times to tell him he was blocking my view but he didn't seem to care. I shifted slightly to my left and so did he, to my right and he did same. I couldn't help but feel he was doing it on purpose. He also came with a lady and two kids. All this while the lady was struggling to keep the kids calm. Between the man and his family, I managed to miss most of the event.

He finally sat down after the oath and started playing the video. He couldn't wait to do this at home? The video was making noise and everyone was turning round looking for who could be so uncouth. The irony is, he kept scolding his kids to keep quiet even though the video was making more noise than they were.

To add a traditional Ghanaian feel to the induction, each inductees name was to be played on talking drums as they were mentioned. It was obvious the drummer hadn't practiced for this. The MC prolonged the reading unnecessarily by asking the drummer to beat the drums again when the sound didn't sound like the name. Sometimes he would get it right after the third try and there were 68 names! I was wondering if this was necessary. More often than not, the drummer got it wrong and the MC asked him to play again. Thankfully, we managed to reach the end of the list after a few 1000 years.

Then the MC asked if anyone in audience had a word of advice for the newly inducted Doctors and one parent stood up and went to stage. It was supposed to be a short speech but the man got stuck on stage and kept going on and on and on! I noticed one lady among the newly inducted Doctors hiding her face. I suspected that must be her Dad. The audience started clapping to encourage him to end his speech but he either didn't hear them or thought they were enjoying his speech. Either way he went on till the MC got fed up and came for the mic.

Program over. A lady came to give the votes of thanks. If you have ever been to a Ghanaian program you know the general format.

Parents were hugging their children who were now full doctors, pictures and videos were being taken everywhere, the usual. Then I noticed one man who seems to be jumping into everyone's picture. He would see a video being taken and would silently walk in the path of the camera. I had no idea who he was but anytime he tried to photobomb the pictures I was taking I would pause and wait for him to pass. I wasn't going to allow some creep in my Sister's pictures.

The refreshment was outside the hall and guests were supposed to wait for the inducted to take their share first but no one was obeying the rules. Refreshment was just some pastries and a bottled drink. People would finish theirs and go for more so many times obviously trying to get full on small chops and pastries.

I didn't come with my own car so I had to scurry home. The journey home is and the hustle of the Ghanaian public transport system is a story for another day.

PS: Congratulations lil' Sis, or do I have to call you Dr. lil Sis now?

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Time Is Relative

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”.

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