American Time!

In Africa, it's not abnormal to go to a function that says (on the invitation) that it will start at 11:00 AM, only to find things don't start moving until 2:30 PM, and go far past the original ending time.  Or even when people say, "I'm coming!" it could mean that they are indeed on their way, or they just got off the couch in preparation to bathe and prepare to get going.  In general, things move slowly, events develop organically, not on a schedule, and people aren't always rushing to catch things.  African time.  When things move swiftly, my Ugandan friends jokingly refer to this as "American Time."  At college today, it was American time all day, and it was exhausting!  Let's begin with my arrival to college:

     I arrived earlyish (eight thirty?) anticipating a meeting.  I strolled casually, greeted everyone, and prepared to take tea.  On my way into the staff room, my supervisor, the Deputy Principal, calls me over for a chat.  Knowing that a chat with Deputy takes anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, I nodded a yes and went in to first take tea.  Immy and I were chatting away and dipping our mandazi into our chai when I got a phonecall--it was Deputy, calling from his office.  I hadn't seen him but three minutes before.
     "Yes, sir," I say.
     "Yes, Mary, when you have a moment, a quick word..."
     "Absolutely."  I couldn't imagine what was so urgent, but I did a very American thing--I took my drink to go!  Know that this is something you never do in Uganda--drink on the move.  I reached his office and greeted him as usual.  I couldn't remember what mundane things we were talking about--something about student files or materials, yadda yadda, but I noticed that he was checking his wall clock about every 20 seconds.  Additionally, he had transformed his usual soliloquies to very brief cliff notes.  I almost felt uncomfortable as to how rushed he was.  During our chat, the DOS came in, talking about mobilizing staff for the burial.  This was new information for me--who died?
     "Mr. Mwanja used to be a Deputy Principal here, his mother passed away," Deputy explained, between exchanges with the DOS.   It was decided that we couldn't sacrifice our staff meeting just to be to the burial on time.  Something I do admire about the culture here is that it would be abhorrent if the co-workers of an individual failed to mobilize and attend events like Kwanjulas (introductions), weddings, or burials, even if it's the burial of a former employee's mother.  I feel like work-people do not involve themselves so much in each others personal lives in the US--which, I feel, is a good and bad thing.
     "Mary, may I register you to attend the burial?" The DOS ask, pen at the ready.
     "Absolutely, I'm there."  I said.  My initial intention was to just go for the experience of a burial function in Uganda.  I hadn't realized I had more of a connection to the deceased. 
     Immediately from Deputy's office, we went back to the staff room, and the meeting began.  The Principal himself introduced the meeting by saying it was to be kept short, an hour at the most.  Usually, the principal hums a high-pitched, unidentifiable tune, and plays with his reading glasses--none of that today, he was all business.  However, I was doubtful; our last "brief" meeting went over by an hour, and our record longest meeting went over by something like four hours.  He bypassed reading the minutes from the previous meeting and we got right into the nitty-gritty.  Supervision of schools--which schools were being seen and which weren't, and our solutions to chronic problems.  It was decided that three subjects would give demonstration lessons tomorrow, starting at 9:00 AM.  I volunteered to do science, and made sure my HOD and other science tutor were on board to help me plan.  At exactly 11:30 AM, the Principal apologized, closed the meeting and left us still discussing transport to the burial, meaning that we had only gone overtime by 1/2 hour (which is pretty darn impressive).  I felt like everyone else was in a hurry and I was the slow one.  Once the beans arrived, we all ate as fast as humanly possible, and then boarded the taxi on standby.
     I now can't remember the name of the place, but I can tell you it was near a Eucalyptus plantation on the way to Buwenge (which is probably the worst road in Uganda.  But it's being paved...slowly slowly...)  I felt like a man could run faster than our taxi was going, but on we went, putt putt putt.  We reached the place, and we were some of the last to arrive, and in fact the whole function had already been going for sometime (all before 1:30!)  The compound was nice--a brick wall with tall, metal spires, grass, trees, and about five large tents to shade the 200 or so attendees.  The usual plastic garden chairs made up the seating, and most of the women were in gomezis of all colors (but a few had all-black gomezis).  A white coffin was in the middle of the compound, trimmed in gold with small engravings.  All coffins here are closed at burials, but there is sometimes a window so you may see the face.  When we came in, we heard a few words from a speaker, then family members came up when introduced to lay flower arrangements on the coffin.  In was then I realized whose burial I was at; Mr. Mwanja is a very nice man whom I met at several workshops and other PTC-related functions.  He never fails to greet me at workshops and ask me about Wanyange. I also see him at the college from time to time.  I saw him lay a large arrangement of plastic-wrapped flowers, and then nearly collapse onto his cousins who were escorting him up as he sobbed, and the weight of the situation hit me--this isn't some cultural museum I'm viewing, this was Mr. Mwanja's mother.  It reminded me of when I went to my grandmother's funeral and I saw my dad cry for the first time in my life--the combination of Mr. Mwanja sobbing and thinking about my grandma's funeral made me cry. 
     The rest of the ceremony went quickly--one moment, I was standing in their garden, listening to the Lusoga prayer over the grave, as the granddaughter was wailing in front of me.  I dropped a handful of dirt on the coffin, and before I knew it we were back in the taxi, me with Madam Enyuk's baby, Gabrielle, falling asleep in my arms.  We had all made our exit before they served food, which I thought was just a shame because it looked like they had a real feast prepared.
     Back at the college, I was still on American time.  I sat with the HOD of science, Nora, and we planned out the demonstration lesson.  From there, I had to collect the materials and discuss the schedule for Saturday with DOS and Deputy.  I then grabbed my milk, rushed home, (had my nails painted) and sat down to type this.  It's now 7:34, I have to write out my lesson plan on chart paper, finish a Lusoga "Months of the Year" calendar, prepare the Year Ones checkout book and drink my tea.  Tea first.  I don't think I can live like this, on American time...