On Tanzanian Time

Travel Stories: In a land where they have a name for people who are always in a hurry -- Mzungu! -- Frank Bures meditates on the art of slowing down

01.30.02 | 12:47 AM ET

clock towerPhoto by Frank Bures

“So,” said the thin Tanzanian at the urinal next to me, “where are you from?”

“America.”

The man seemed to have guessed this. He narrowed his eyes and looked at me.

“America,” he said, “is a sick society.”

I’d been in East Africa half a year and had heard almost nothing but polite inquiries about my country. So I was surprised to hear a Tanzanian so angry, so spiteful. And this one was adamant in his damnation of America.

The man told me his name was Richard. We walked back into the bar in the Splendid Hotel in downtown Arusha, where I was teaching English, and sat down together. The room’s dim, yellow lights and wood paneling hadn’t been changed since the 1970s. Around us, rich old Tanzanian men with protruding bellies sat in cushioned chairs while smiling barmaids brought them their drinks.

I had been on my way to meet some friends for dinner and was a little early, so I stopped in the Splendid Hotel. I came in for a cool drink, not a social critique of America. Yet back at the bar, I found myself listening intently as Richard explained his distaste for my country.

“For eight years,” he said, “I lived in Virginia. When I got out of school, I got a job with Exxon, all on my own, no government program. I had a wife there—she is American—and two kids. And a good salary.” He paused while he thought this over. “But I couldn’t take it,” he said finally. “One day, I just snapped.”

Richard told me how he had worked twelve- and fourteen-hour days for Exxon. He never saw his family. People didn’t talk to him, hurrying by. And his neighbors were worse than anyone. “They wouldn’t even give you a nickel for a telephone call,” he told me. At last, tired of the never-ending rush of America, Richard packed up and went home.

“I have no regrets,” he said.

“But what about your wife and kids?” I asked.

“They’re still there.”

“Don’t they want to come here?”

“They visited once, but they didn’t like it. They’re American, you know.”

There was another pause.

“But now,” Richard said, leaning back in his chair, “I have a good job, my three meals a day and my beer in the evening. And that is all I need.”

I looked around and saw that I was the only white man in the bar, and probably the only one who knew what Richard was talking about. We sat in silence for a while and I thought over his story. It was true, I knew, that the pace of life back in America could make you crazy, with all the running around in circles.

In fact, that was the Swahili word for “white man”: Mzungu. It technically means a “European.” But it derives from “kuzunguka” or “to make a circle,” and has its roots in an observation locals made about the strange pale folk who came across the water long ago.

You see, when the first white men came to East Africa, people noticed how they ran from place to place until, at the end of the day, it seemed they were back where they started. The white men were always hurrying, always rushing around. They never had time to stop and talk. They never took time to just relax. And today’s white men are no different, which may be why the word has endured. Even today, children will run up to you and shout, “Mzungu!” Mothers will point you out to their children and whisper, “Look. Mzungu.”

Yet there’s no malice in it. Racism certainly exists in Tanzania, but Mzungu is not one of its forms. Unlike Mhindi (Indian), which means, roughly, “a cheap ass,” Mzungu is a term of bemusement and means merely that you are white, rich and probably in a hurry. Any time a Tanzanian arrives punctually, he is called a Mzungu meusi—a black white man.

At the Splendid Hotel, the barmaid brought Richard and me more drinks. As our conversation drifted, I thought of my country—a land where the Mzungu eats for exactly 30 minutes at lunch, takes exactly 10 minutes for a break and measures the rest of the day in five-minute intervals. It is a land where time is always being saved, but never savored. This was something I hadn’t even known I could escape from. But now that I had, and was sitting at the Splendid sipping my beer and looking back, it did seem like we were always running in circles.

Because in Tanzania, the days were languid. You never knew what was going to waylay your plans, but you knew something probably would. You might have to stop and talk to a neighbor for an hour. You might have to wait three hours to see an immigration officer. You might have unexpected visitors come and stay for a long, long time, just visiting. (You wouldn’t think of turning them away.) Or you might walk five miles to a shop, find it closed, and have to come back the next day. So you just took things as they came. You let things go.

A Swahili proverb says, “Haraka haraka haina baraka.” It means that rushing brings bad luck, but it takes more than mere translation to understand it. In Tanzania, time flows smoothly. Hours slide together. Days drift by. Walking with a group of Tanzanians is more a stroll than a race. A meeting scheduled for 10 often doesn’t start until noon, because time is not of the essence. In fact, the hands on the clock tower in central Arusha never move because the clock is always broken.

The Mzungu is always frustrated by this, gnawed at by a vague sense of urgency. But while the Mzungu is busy worrying about minutes lost, his or her Tanzanian friends are talking, joking, laughing and arguing, untroubled by the general tardiness of things.

Richard and I sat at the bar for a while, just talking about America and Tanzania. But then the time came to meet my friends. I finished my beer and said good-bye.

Outside the hotel, on the dark, potholed street, people walked slowly down the road. Others lounged in doorways, or sat at tables, drinking and playing cards.

And as I set off, I looked down at my watch and noticed that I was already a little late.



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