A more relaxed way of life

Sunday we experienced the reality that things happen at a much slower pace in Africa. We learnt about this cultural notion, known as "pole pole" (pronounced pole-eh pole-eh) during our training sessions at Ivey, but didn't quite understand what it meant until now!

A few examples of pole pole in our adventures yesterday:

We had sent an email to all of our 88 registered students to meet us today between 1 and 3 pm in the upstairs canteen to pick up Monday's case. No one showed up. (We later found out this was due to technical difficulties with the finicky internet on Saturday, but at the time we were quite concerned!)

We also received a phone call switching the class time to 8am, but ran into a student who had received communications stating that the class would be at 9am. Dr. Murty then called us saying that we have a meeting with him this morning at 9am, before class starts at 10. Although we were quite stressed about the uncertainty, everyone around us seemed extremely relaxed, and reassured us that it would all work out!

It's nice to see that the culture here is more relaxed… They don't stress over little things like we do! That being said, I was stressing just a tiny bit about our first day of classes today - went to bed hoping that the students like us, and that it's a great start to the course! :)