The Rhythm We Lost: Reclaiming African Time
The Mockery That Reveals the Truth
"Oh, they'll be late, you know, African time." The phrase drips with condescension, spoken by people who rush past neighbours without acknowledgement, who eat lunch at their desks while checking emails, who schedule their children's play dates three weeks in advance.
What they mock as inefficiency is actually the preservation of something they've lost, the understanding that time serves life, not the other way around.
When I walk to the market here in Tanzania and stop to greet someone I know, we don't just exchange pleasantries. We pause. We look each other in the eyes. We ask how the family is doing and wait for the real answer. We share a moment of genuine human connection before continuing our separate journeys.
Western efficiency would label this a "waste of time." But what's actually being wasted when societies train people to rush past each other like strangers, when human connection becomes a luxury squeezed between productivity metrics?
The Well and the Bottled Water
The absurdity becomes clear when you see where Western "efficiency" leads. In wealthy countries, when young people develop behavioural or mental health problems, parents spend thousands sending them to wilderness programs. Places without modern conveniences, where kids forage for meals, spend time in nature, and learn to live according to natural rhythms rather than digital notifications.
This is what "heals" them. This is what resets their broken relationship with time and community.
It's like someone poisoning a well, then selling expensive bottled water back to the village.
The same societies that mock "African time" pay premium prices to temporarily restore what they systematically destroyed—connection to natural cycles, meaningful work, genuine community interaction, time that flows with human needs rather than corporate demands..
What "Developed" Really Costs
We're told African societies need to "develop", to abandon traditional time concepts for Western efficiency. Rush to the cities. Get on the clock. Measure worth by productivity. Schedule life into neat compartments.
But watch what happens. Urban planning that prioritises cars over community spaces. Work schedules that fragment family time. Education systems that ignore seasonal wisdom in favour of arbitrary academic calendars. Social media replaces face-to-face connections with digital performance.
The very societies holding themselves up as models are experiencing epidemics of anxiety, depression, and social isolation. Their young people are medicated for conditions that barely existed in communities where time still served human flourishing.
The Wisdom in "Wasting" Time
In Swahili, people don't rush toward a distant future tense the way English speakers do. Time flows through events, through seasons, through community rhythms. Things happen "baada ya mvua" (after the rains) or "wakati wa mavuno" (during harvest time).
This isn't primitive, it's sophisticated. It recognises that meaningful accomplishments can't be forced into fiscal quarters. Relationships develop over seasons, not weekends. Wisdom emerges through lived experience, not cramming sessions before arbitrary deadlines.
When Western businesses complain about "African time," they're actually complaining about a worldview that prioritises human dignity over mechanical efficiency. A worldview that says some things—like genuine greeting, like community care, like honouring elders—can't be rushed.
The Real Inefficiency
What's truly inefficient is a system that creates so much psychological damage it needs wilderness therapy to repair it. That fragments communities so thoroughly it needs expensive retreats to remember how to connect. That moves so fast it never notices the profound loneliness it's creating.
Western time concepts have produced societies where neighbors don't know each other's names, where families eat meals in silence while staring at screens, where "quality time" has to be scheduled because quantity time disappeared.
This is the "development" we're supposed to aspire to? This is efficiency?
The January Delusion
Nothing captures the absurdity of Western time tyranny quite like New Year's resolutions. Every January 1st, millions of people make grand proclamations about who they'll become by December 31st, as if transformation follows fiscal calendars.
"This year I'll lose weight, learn a language, start a business, and become a better person." By February, most have failed. By March, they're carrying guilt about broken promises made to an arbitrary date on a colonial calendar.
What happens when life intervenes? When family needs care, when health changes, when communities face challenges? The resolution system offers no grace for human complexity, no acknowledgement that growth happens in spirals, not straight lines.
African time concepts understand that meaningful change happens when conditions align—when the rains come, when community supports it, when the season is right. You don't plant during drought because the calendar says it's January. You plant when the earth is ready.
But Western time creates this ridiculous pressure: "Only three months left in the year! Time is running out! Achieve your goals now, or you've failed!" Failed at what? Do you explode at the end of year?
The Philosophy We Already Knew
In 1969, Kenyan philosopher John Mbiti wrote "African Religions and Philosophy," fundamentally challenging Western assumptions about how Africans understand time. Mbiti described two dimensions of African time: "Sasa" and "Zamani." Sasa encompasses the present that flows into the immediate future and recent past, the lived time of community interaction, seasonal cycles, and meaningful events. Zamani represents the collective immortality where ancestors dwell, where events move when they pass out of personal memory but remain part of community consciousness.
Mbiti's insight was revolutionary: African time isn't "backward" or "undeveloped", it's sophisticated in ways Western linear time cannot grasp. It recognises that past, present, and future are interconnected through community and ancestral wisdom. Events don't disappear into a dead past; they become part of the living fabric of collective memory that guides present decisions.
This is the philosophical foundation for what I experience walking to market—time that serves relationship rather than efficiency, that honours the continuity between what was, what is, and what will be through community connection.
Ubuntu Time
There's another way to think about time, ubuntu time. Time that recognises we exist because we exist together. Time that understands my wellbeing and yours are inseparable, so caring for community connections isn't optional; it's essential.
Ubuntu time doesn't ask "How can I maximise my individual productivity today?" It asks, "How can we move forward together in a way that honours our shared humanity?"
This means stopping to really greet your neighbour on the way to market isn't "wasting time", it's investing in the social fabric that keeps societies healthy. It means seasonal rhythms matter more than calendar deadlines. It means some accomplishments take multiple growing cycles to mature, and that's not failure, that's wisdom.
The Choice We Face
As African societies navigate modernisation, we face a choice. We can abandon our time concepts for Western efficiency and inherit their epidemics of isolation and anxiety. Or we can evolve our own models, cities designed around community time, economies that serve human rhythms, and technologies that enhance rather than fragment connection.
The irony is perfect: as the "developed" world finally recognises the mental health crisis created by their relationship with time, they're looking for solutions that sound remarkably like what they've been teaching us to abandon.
Maybe it's time to stop letting others define what efficiency means. Maybe it's time to recognise that a society where people genuinely care for each other's wellbeing, where time serves life rather than consuming it, where accomplishments are measured in community flourishing rather than individual accumulation—maybe that's the real development.
The rhythm we lost can be reclaimed. The choice is ours.
Ubuntu time isn't about being late. It's about arriving as full human beings, connected to each other and to the natural cycles that sustain all life.
That's not inefficiency. That's wisdom.