It is very easy to become frustrated with the way meetings are organised here in Arua. On occasions a meeting announcement will contain no time at all, which at least offers a degree of flexibility in interpretation. More often, however, the advertised starting time ends up by being wildly optimistic. Certainly half-an-hour’s divergence is not unusual, and on occasions the variance can be an hour or more. At its best this arrangement offers the opportunity to chat with anyone else who happens to arrive on time. At worst you can spend long periods of time standing outside a locked door in the sun waiting for someone to appear and wondering if you’ve got the right day.
Another feature of meetings is their length which, if they begin in the morning always includes lunch. Lunch too can be a moveable feast as with the clergy chapter meeting which began at 10.15am (it had been scheduled for 10.00, so this was not too bad). It was programmed to finish by 1.00 pm in time for lunch. In practice, lunch was taken at 5.00 pm, 15 minutes after the meeting actually finished.
As I said, this can be very frustrating, and you are driven to wondering how it is possible for things to be so inefficient.
A couple of weekends ago things became much clearer to me, and I found myself having to repent of my earlier very intolerant attitude. A meeting at the diocesan office, due to begin at 10.00 am, finally began at 11.00. We agreed that the meeting should, if possible, last no longer than 90 minutes. By midday we had managed to read the minutes of the previous meeting, at which time a late-comer arrived (people had actually been drifting in for much of the morning). I thought the usual muzungu thoughts about people who couldn’t arrive at meetings on time.
The meeting finally concluded at around 2.00 and, of course, lunch was served. I fell into
conversation with the midday-latecomer and discovered that he had come from Yumbe, a distance of some 90-100km from Arua, and a very bad road which we had driven on our tour of the diocese. He had set off at 4.00 am by bicycle and it had taken him rather longer to arrive than he expected. He was cheerful, made a full contribution to the meeting and had two helpings of food.
I felt chastised and rather humbled by this commitment which made me realise just how ignorant and petty was my intolerance. It doesn’t necessarily make the waiting any easier, but so far as that meeting was concerned I know why it was so important to start late, and for it to last so long.
There’s so much here that makes you think twice, thrice or............
P.S. Pictures show the Diocesan Office and the road to Yumbe (a good stretch).
Another feature of meetings is their length which, if they begin in the morning always includes lunch. Lunch too can be a moveable feast as with the clergy chapter meeting which began at 10.15am (it had been scheduled for 10.00, so this was not too bad). It was programmed to finish by 1.00 pm in time for lunch. In practice, lunch was taken at 5.00 pm, 15 minutes after the meeting actually finished.As I said, this can be very frustrating, and you are driven to wondering how it is possible for things to be so inefficient.
A couple of weekends ago things became much clearer to me, and I found myself having to repent of my earlier very intolerant attitude. A meeting at the diocesan office, due to begin at 10.00 am, finally began at 11.00. We agreed that the meeting should, if possible, last no longer than 90 minutes. By midday we had managed to read the minutes of the previous meeting, at which time a late-comer arrived (people had actually been drifting in for much of the morning). I thought the usual muzungu thoughts about people who couldn’t arrive at meetings on time.
The meeting finally concluded at around 2.00 and, of course, lunch was served. I fell into
conversation with the midday-latecomer and discovered that he had come from Yumbe, a distance of some 90-100km from Arua, and a very bad road which we had driven on our tour of the diocese. He had set off at 4.00 am by bicycle and it had taken him rather longer to arrive than he expected. He was cheerful, made a full contribution to the meeting and had two helpings of food.I felt chastised and rather humbled by this commitment which made me realise just how ignorant and petty was my intolerance. It doesn’t necessarily make the waiting any easier, but so far as that meeting was concerned I know why it was so important to start late, and for it to last so long.
There’s so much here that makes you think twice, thrice or............
P.S. Pictures show the Diocesan Office and the road to Yumbe (a good stretch).
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