Lessons in Patience: African style

Today I got more stressed than I've been in quite some time and a lot of the stress was due to time constraints...I had to finish a task by a deadline that resulted in rushing home to get somewhere on time that resulted in.....

My first reaction was that it made me miss my time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali when I used to spend every afternoon sitting with friends, drinking tea, greeting the other villagers and just hanging out. I did a lot of that in Mali...just hanging out (and 3 rounds of tea played a crucial role in that experience).

As my stress subsided, I started to think about all the lessons (most on patience) that I learned while in Mali (in no particular order):

1. Despite every one's need to have their Casio watches synchronized to the second....time did not really matter and there was no official time for anything...things just happen when they are supposed to happen...wake up at dawn, lunch and rest when it's hottest, dinner at dusk...

2. Expect everything to start 5 minutes to 5 hours late....a reasonable window in Mali

3. Chickens, donkeys, and women at the water pump are a much better alarm clock than the $20 clock/radio by my bed

4. waking up to a yard full of donkeys, sheep, chickens, and goats is nothing to get stressed about, just a friendly reminder to mend the fence

5. counting the mice dive bombing your mosquito net are a good alternative to counting sheep

6. 12 hours in 100 degree heat with very little water was a good first lesson to the public transportation schedule

6a. lesson 2: night spent on the open train car waiting for the 7 PM train that arrived at 7 AM

7. Almost being trampled by the mob trying to rush onto an arriving train in Bamako only to learn the train would sit for 3 more hours before leaving

8. expect the train to take anywhere from 12 to 30 hours

9. I'm sitting in the back of a bush taxi. Man in the back of the truck stands up and fires rifle off in the distance. Driver stops. Man jumps out and runs off. Man returns 15 minutes later with a goose in tow. Man jumps in. We all jump out to push car up hill to start. Continue on our journey. Perfectly normal.

10. I need to ask a Chinese acupuncturist if he knows the PC house in Kita. I don't speak Chinese. He doesn't speak English. We both speak Bambara.

11. Blaring music all night is perfectly acceptable.

12. In America we think duct tape is the all in one fix-it solution, but we haven't met "mana" --the strips of rubber that can be used to repair bicycle tires, donkey carts, farming equipment, and even bus axles

13. As much as Malians wait for everything else...waiting for food to be cool enough to put your hand in is not "normal"

14. Early afternoon naps under the neme tree

15. Greetings are 90% of 80% of conversations

16. Nights when the only thing you hope for is a cool breeze as you lie sweating on your outdoor bed of sticks...and the occasional late night cold water bucket rinse off

All of this made me love Mali and love Africa.

All of this prepared me for my last experience in Africa and one of my most memorable (although I have trouble with all the exact details) that wast the ultimate test in patience:

After our wedding in Mali my wife and I had to travel from Kayes, Mali to Dakar, Senegal. We decided to try the bus as I had taken the train in and it was over 35 hours.

Wednesday 4 PM: Get on bus in Kayes.

Wednesday Early evening: After a few hours we arrived at the Senegal border where we had to wait around to go through border customs. Waiting but not too bad yet.

Wednesday Late night: Set out and drive through most of the night without event (at least I don't remember much).

Thursday morning: The bus stops before dawn and they don't let anyone out. We sit for a long time wondering what is going on before we see men outside siphoning all of the gas out of the fuel tanks into large plastic jugs (apparently there was a leak). My first thought is that we'll have to catch another bus. Nope. A man brings the jugs inside the bus amongst the passengers and opens up a little hatch in the middle of the aisle. He pulls out a rubber tube (wonderful "mana") and starts siphoning gas directly into the engine's fuel line. He takes a seat to man his siphon and we depart.

Thursday Late morning: We drive for a few more hours into the middle of the day.

Thursday Noon: All of a sudden there is a big "thud" and it seems like the bus is grinding on something. The bus stops and we all crowd outside. The driver and his partner disappear down the road and us passengers are left to sit by the side of the road in the blazing midday heat (luckily we bought a thermos with ice the day before).

Thursday an hour or so later: Clueless as to what is going on. Most passengers don't seem too concerned yet. Finally, the driver appears carrying a large chunk of wood that he had just chopped down. It seems that the piece of metal that holds the bus frame up from rubbing against the wheel axle broke off, and this piece of wood is what he intends to use in its place. So with a little rope and, of course, "mana"....

Thursday another hour later: We're off again.

Thursday mid afternoon: Amazingly that block of wood holds up for quite a few hours...but alas eventually it breaks out and another "thud" and grinding halt. We all pile out again and the driver says he has to try and hitch a ride to the next town for "a part" and will be back. He hitches a ride on the next passing car and is gone leaving his partners behind. So we all take our places in the shade on the side of the road and wait.

Thursday late afternoon: Now we're over 20 hours into the trip and the events that have been occurring are starting to surpass "normal" so people start to complain. Some approach the workers asking for their luggage so they can hitch other rides. At first the bus workers don't comply so people start to get it themselves. My problem is that my luggage (along with most of the other passengers' luggage) is lashed to the top of the bus along with a few sheep and goats. So I'm forced to wait and wait and wait....

Thursday not too much later: The driver comes back and lets us know that the bus is beyond repair so we have to hitch other rides. They get our luggage down and we wait for the next car.

Thursday still late afternoon: It isn't too long (or at least not too long compared to everything else) before we find a small minivan to take us. So we hop in and ride for 6 more hours to a pit stop

Thursday 6 hours later: We have dinner and are transferred to another minibus that must wait around until it's full before departing on our final leg to Dakar. Finally, we depart.

Friday 4 am: We make it to Dakar where we have to take a cab to a hotel which ends up being full so we have to walk and find a really shady hotel for the night....oh...and did I mention, we had a very important appointment at the American Consulate in Dakar that morning at 8 am regarding my wife's visa.

So if ever there was a time to be stressed...it was on that bus thinking making our appointment (that I waited a year to get scheduled) was impossible and I would have traveled thousands of miles to marry and bring back my wife only to have to leave her behind....but "Allah Sonna" and the rest is history.

So after that you would think nothing can phase me, but alas I find myself slipping into the constraints of time that we all operate by here in the developed world. But my stressful day has caused me to think back and remember how silly we are to be so worried about time and all the other things we stress about....so maybe next time I start to have a day like today I need to remember these lessons and use them like a mantra to recenter myself.