The African definition of time
In Kenya, I often hear "pole pole", sometimes followed in the same breath by "hakuna matata". While the latter means "no worries" (yes, The Lion King has already given you a head start in Swahili), "pole pole" translates to "take it easy". However, this mindset can sometimes be challenging if you arrive in Africa with a Dutch "time is money" mentality—why won’t that bus just leave already?
One of the most fascinating theories I’ve come across regarding the African concept of time comes from Ryszard Kapuściński, a Polish journalist who spent over thirty years travelling across various African countries, including Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. As an Africa correspondent, he wrote extensively for newspapers, but he also authored several books. His thoughts on time in Africa can be found in The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life, which was published in Dutch as Ebbenhout.
Book: The Shadow of the Sun / Ebbenhout
In his book, Kapuściński compares the European concept of time with the African one. While Europeans are often enslaved by time, he argues, Africans view time as fluid, flexible, and adaptable—after all, time is a human construct. A meeting, therefore, only truly exists once both parties have arrived, not simply because it was scheduled in advance.
Below is the full passage from The Shadow of the Sun:
“The European and the African have an entirely different concept of time. In the European worldview, time exists outside man, exists objectively, and has measurable and linear characteristics. According to Newton, time in absolute: “Absolute, true, mathematical time of itself and from its own nature, it flows equably and with relation to anything external.” The European feels himself to be time’s slave, dependent on it, subject to it. To exist and function, he must observe its ironclad, inviolate laws, its inflexible principles and rules. He must heed deadlines, dates, days and hours. He moves within the rigors of time and cannot exist outside them. They impose upon him their requirements and quotas. An unresolvable conflict exists between man and time, one that always ends with man’s defeat – time annihilates him. Africans apprehend time differently. For them, it is a much looser concept, more open, elastic, subjective. It is man who influences time, its shape, course and rhythm (man acting, of course, with the consent of gods and ancestors). Time is even something that man can create outright, for time is made manifest through events, and whether an event takes place or not depends, after all, on man alone. If two armies do not engage in a battle, then that battle will not occur (in other words, time will not have revealed its presence, will not have come into being). Time appears as a result of our actions, and vanishes when we neglect or ignore it. It is something that springs to life under our influence, but falls into a state of hibernation, even nonexistence, if we do not direct our energy toward it. It is a subservient, passive essence, and, most importantly, one dependent on man. The absolute opposite of time as it is understood in the European worldview. In practical terms, this means that if you go to a village where a meeting is scheduled for the afternoon but find no one at the appointed spot asking, “When will the meeting take place?” makes no sense. You know the answer: “It will take place when people come.””
