It is great to be timeless and refuse to be brought into a world of unending hustle; however we must adapt and adopt a new culture, one that is not on Bole Time.

by Teddy Fikre  written:  Friday, January 13th, 2012

How ironic, I was supposed to have completed this article three hours ago and emailed it to the publisher of browncondor (that would be me) before 1:00 PM.  Alas, I was struck with that dreaded Habesha gene named Ketero.  This disease Ketero is so dreaded that it is listed as more lethal than Ebola on the CDC website. Seriously, the inability to be on time within the Habesha community is so widespread and rampant, that even the late people end up arriving early to most Habesha events.  So this article, inspired by Kassahun Kebede on a Facebook page I administer, is one that will delve into the Ethiopian collective psyche and discuss in the open our inability to be timely.

Now, like I stated above, I am the biggest sinner when it comes to this transgression.  No bull kaka, I will probably be late to my own funeral.  This Ketero disease has prevented me from enjoying countless milestones in my own life. I missed my own graduation, I slept through the death of my father, I showed up late to the birthdays of all of my nieces and nephews, I have missed Christmas dinners time ad infinitum.  Now considering that my sisters and brother are equally infected by this dreaded malady, you would think on occasion I would occasionally be on time.  But no, even my sisters and brothers know—when it comes to Teddiye—best apply a two hour rule and then plan on me showing up an hour after that.

This pernicious thing I have observed countless times in my life while it ravages the minds of other Ethiopians.  I have seen weddings start 4 hours late in order to accommodate Ethiopians infected with Ketero. I have seen the bride refuse to come out to celebrate until she sees that all her family and friends have arrived 2 hours late.  In fact, I have come up for a name for this tendency for Ethiopians to always be late; I call it Bole Time, DOPER than Greenwich Time for sure.  Funny how we have 13 months on our calendar; you see, not even our calendar can tell time correctly.  Droning on about Bole Time is akin to the Dutch boy trying to plug a leak in the dam with his fingertips.  Bole Time is a fact of life, we are too immersed in this timeless—literally—tendency of ours to ever rid our body of this syndrome. I am pretty sure that the reason Lucy died in the mountains is because she woke up two hours late and her crew left her behind.

But what is it about Bole Time that is such a part and parcel of our thinking.  I mean, we all know it is rude as hell to keep someone waiting for two hours at a Starbucks while we sit our asses down on the couch to watch the last bit of Seinfeld.  Yet we do it anyway, we continuously pop our collars in hurricanes (sigh this saying has become my literal crutch) and insist on being late.  Yet, when someone does the same deed to us, our heads pop like an overheated jebena and we find ourselves wanting to spit buna grinds in their eyes for keeping waiting so.  Thus, victim and victimizer are both trapped between the hands of the clock; we continuously let Bole Time keep us from respecting ourselves and our friends.

I think it is precisely because we are afraid of being the first to show up and then be kept waiting for hours on end for our friends to arrive that we insist on being the last one to show up.  Moreover, we don’t have respect for the time of others when we finally get to that event.  I can’t tell you how many times a one hour business meeting between Ethiopians has devolved into a four hour talk-a-thon of talking nonsense. Our churches—Bole Time!  Our Politicians—Bole Time!  Our schools—Bole Time!  I can’t think of one aspect of our culture that is not infected to the core with that germ called Bole Time.  Ketero—in this sense—is more like a gemed (I hope I said that right), it is a rope that ties our hands and feet and binds us to timeless inertia.

I know one thing, when I go to any Habesha event, I know for a fact that my day has already been burned.  I don’t say this with enmity though; I love our community for that.  I love Bole Time when I am eating injera with friends, trust me, only the warm smiles and conversation over kitfo could ever keep me still for four hours and overcome my ADD.  I love endless talk while on Bole Time while sipping buna at the Somali Embassy (yeah the Starbucks in Bailey’s Cross Roads).  But I digress, back to the time and topic at hand, I am not aiming all my arsenic at our community for being late, I love the way we refuse to submit to the hands of time and do things our own way.  While the rest of the world continues to run and hustle trying to recoup lost time, we Ethiopians sit back and enjoy the time we have and breathe in Bole Time to the fullest.

But as we continue to run on Bole Time—as we continue to submit to that enchanted mistress named Ketero—just remember that occasionally our inability to tell time will cost us plenty.  After all, we live in a new world; most of us are not in Addis anymore.  And even the ones living in Addis are tied through the ether by the time of the Western World.  It is great to be timeless and refuse to be brought into a world of unending hustle; however we must also adapt and adopt a new culture, one that is not on Bole Time.  We have to be multilingual and multi-spatial with it—we have to live in two parallel worlds—one on Bole Time the other on Greenwich Time.  We have to at once be timeless while on the other hand be timely.  If not, let me introduce you to Universal Rule number 4—those who are late will always be left behind.  Just ask my girl Lucy, you can find her late ass hanging around at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis.

“It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.” ~Francois Rabelais

[click to watch video of Stayin Alive if you have TIME]

Muse #1

Kassahun Kebede

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Muse #2

Bef Ayenew

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Author

Teddy Fikre

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