Mud bricks drying in the hot desert sun in Timbuktu; sometimes travelling in Africa can feel this, er, dynamic
If West Africa has a national sport, it must be sitting around and waiting. I've spent so much of the last few weeks sitting on my arse, waiting for something to happen, that it's practically become the raison d'être of my trip. Every day I find myself playing the waiting game, and the only way to cope with it is to adopt the local attitude that waiting is the only thing worth doing properly. If you let it get to you, you'll go mad.
West Africa is the poorest region on Earth, but one thing the locals are rich in is time, and they sure like to spend lots of it. Everything takes time, from waiting for buses to fill to waiting for people to show up, and the concept of punctuality is completely alien. If something has a timetable associated with it, then the only thing that is certain is that the timetable contains the one time when things are guaranteed not to happen. If someone says they will meet you at a certain time, then the only thing that is certain is that they will appear some time after that time, but certainly not before, and certainly not at the appointed hour. If you order food in a restaurant, it may arrive quickly, it may arrive slowly, or it may not arrive at all. Time isn't money here, or everyone would be rolling in it.
I guess if I'd been brought up in a continent so insanely hot as Africa, I'd take my time too. I'm sure there's a reason for it all, but I'm still waiting...
