Pole pole

"pole pole" captures probably 50% of what's going on in Africa...it means, "slowly slowly"..."pole" also means "sorry", but I'm not sure people are sorry about being slow...I had expected this so have kind of just laughed it off when someone living 10 min away tells you "I'm on my way", but show up 3 hours later...however, when I had to wait for 12 hours with nothing else to do, and asking for a "real real REAL deadline" never get me anywhere, it really got to me...

I'm not sure why this is the case, I don't think Africans are particularly more lazy than others...a couple hypothesis on this topic:
1) Lots of sun light: there was a theory that the further out you're from the equator, from an agricultural perspective, you have to be more precise on time because you lose sun light very quickly for farming if you are not mindful of the time.  Being right here by the equator, Africans have the luxury of having great sun lights, so doesn't have a lot of incentive to be mindful of time
2) Planning isn't really a strong skill around here: my boss tells me, the furthest out people plan around here is what to do after lunch.  And this is the case because based on the history here, all sorts of bad things happen around here, who knows what's going to happen to you next?  There's no reliable infrastructure or service to count on, when people cannot count on any sort of system, you'll just have to get used to going with the flow, so...why plan? Also, most live under extreme poverty, and people don't expect to live a very long life...in fact, some don't expect to live 48 hours from now, so, what's the point of long-term planning?  The fact that I am constantly thinking about my life plan is truly a luxury and a blessing.

I think both are valid arguments, but when I talk to my Kenyan friends, they just say, doesn't really matter why, just go with it...this is Africa, man, pole pole!