Patience

Every African needs the patience of a saint to survive, or even just to get through a normal day without going insane.
What do you do when the bus you were riding on suddenly breaks down in the middle of nowhere? You wait. Eventually help will come. It may take minutes, hours, days, but help will come.
And what do you do when friends told you they were coming for a visit on Saturday and meanwhile it has become Sunday and then Monday? You wait. At some point they will appear at your front door waving, smiling, bringing gifts.
Or when the guy who owns the shop went for lunch and now it’s 5pm? Or when the gasoline truck hasn’t been showing up for weeks to fill up the gas station? Or when the cleaning lady tells you she went to attend a funeral and then disappears for a whole week? Or when, generally, someone tells you they’re “just on their way”? You wait, and wait, and wait… The incredible this is I’ve never seen anyone getting impatient or even stop smiling. I’ve never seen anyone get angry because of a delay. It’s as if time was a non-existing variable, something that is not worth being taken into consideration, much less stress about.