Lessons (by Jennings)

Three times a week, a pastor comes to give me Swahili lessons. He is a very experienced teacher and has been teaching Swahili - and sometimes French - to missionaries for many years. He will have me read through a passage of Scripture, then we'll go through it slowly, picking out new vocabulary. When we come across a grammatical structure that I'm unfamiliar with, he gives me a mini-lesson and has me practice it.
In addition to being a good teacher, Pastor is one of the best story-tellers I know. He also has great cultural sensitivity, and some of the best "learning" of our time together comes from impromptu discussions of culture.
One morning recently, I saw him coming through our front yard walking very... slowly... taking baby steps, it seemed. I rushed to the door, concerned that he was ill.


As it turns out, he was running early and didn't want to arrive before our scheduled 8:30 start time. The week before, he had arrived 20-30 minutes early a couple of times. I wasn't ready for him, and I was embarrassed, so I had protested. So now here he was, taking baby steps so as not to come at the wrong time and upset me. I felt terrible for having been so rigid and (probably) unkind.
This prompted a discussion about Westerners and their obsession with punctuality. There's an old expression, "Westerners have all the watches, but Africans have all the time." If you have an appointment, but you see a friend along the way, it would be strange and rude to not stop and talk to them because someone (who is not there) is waiting for you. We learned in anthro class (and from experience) that things often happen in Africa on "event time"... that is, the thing starts when everyone is ready for it to start, which may or may not be anywhere near the announced time. 
Pastor told me a story from when a group of young Europeans came to Bunia for a short mission trip. They had planned to spend a Saturday going from town to town, and would leave at 7 AM sharp. But that morning it was raining hard. Pastor lives about 30 minutes away from where the young people were staying, and there were no motorcycle taxis available.  Because... duh, it was raining! What idiot goes out in the rain?! Answer: Westerners do! Because they have raincoats and umbrellas and cars and things to keep them dry. Rain is no reason to stay home, for them/us. So, at 7:30 they called Pastor, demanding to know where he was. He explained that he was held up because of the rain, but they told him to come there immediately so they could leave. He had to walk in the rain for 30 minutes to get there. They didn't even offer to come pick him up in their vehicle.
I shook my head sadly at this story, they were being unreasonable, mean and unfeeling. These are terrible sins in Congolese culture, certainly much worse than being late for an appointment. And how effective is your evangelistic witness if you mistreat your host?

But I could also see it from their standpoint. And I am sure they didn't realize what their actions looked like to people here. Before living here for a while, I could easily have done the same thing. It would not have made sense to me that rain would automatically slow everything down, or that public transport would be lacking. I wouldn't have understood that you need to hold plans and time-frames loosely, be patient, be KIND, and remember that people are more important than schedules. (I'm still working on these...)
Of course it isn't always so black and white. Congolese students at the university here are rigorously punctual about getting to class. At church, we (as a congregation) are often scolded for arriving late and we're reminded throughout the service how much time remains. This may be a sign of changing times, of "Westernization", or urbanization, or modernization or some other -zation. But it's also at tension with traditional aspects of African culture.
So, on Sundays, we try to be on time to church (we're getting closer...). Same if we're leading a class. But for Swahili lessons, or visits, or funerals, or weddings, we try to be relaxed, patient, and let things happen as they're going to happen.
What are your experiences with different cultural notions of time?