"Quite the jowl ey, China?"

Nothing is safe from slang and cultural relativism, not even nationhood. China is no longer a term reserved for the emerging super power. According to many South Africans “China” is your friend and seems to be a term of endearment. Gathered around a fire in the hazy heat of a Mozambican sunset, a Capetonian noted, “This is a quite a jowl ey, China?” I did a double take not quite sure he was addressing me. “China?” I asked. And quickly responded “No, no I'm an American, I'm not from China.” I soon learned China is not only a country in Asia but is interchangeable with mate, dude or brew (brew being the term known to the rest of the of the English speaking world as bro or brother).

While the South Africans may use the words China and friend interchangeably, let there be no mistake, the Chinese are not your friend. Their presence is strong in the South Eastern quadrant of the African Continent but they are not here to make friends, they have about 1,324,655,000 back in their own country. They are here like many before them to capitalize on Africa's abundant natural resources.

Where I might say the Asians have lost the plot on capitalism, the Africans glanced once at the introduction and decided it was not for them. Unfortunately for the African continent capitalist enterprise, blind ambition and the eager, insatiable pursuit of wealth was well received by the Asian Tigers. The Chinese in particular have really caught on hook, line and sinker and in Mozambique they have been hooking, lining and sinking an astonishingly large portion of the fish population.

The Chinese, Japanese and most of the world have developed an insatiable appetite for fish and the oceans are not producing at a rate to keep up with the pillaging. Mozambique in particular has become a target. Minimally enforced regulation and a coast line twice the size of California hosting a large percentage of the world's shark population has wet the Chinese pallet. Shark fins being the most sought after item. Why shark fins? Well, Shark fin soup of coarse! It is considered an aphrodisiac, a delicacy and is a high ticket item amongst the upper echelons of Chinese society. As a result Sharks are being fished out at an unprecedented rate.

In exchange for roadwork the Mozambican government recently licensed fishing rights to Chinese companies. This exchange may sound like a good idea for infrastructural development but corruption has bludgeoned any such benefit. What the Chinese are licensed to catch and what they in actuality catch are two distinctly different figures. When your enforcing body is paid next to nothing, anything under the table will quickly turn an eye blind and in ports up and down the coast of Mozambique it has!

China is not doing anything unique in the grand scale of history. Like many nations before them they are capitalizing on the majority of African governments' failure to control or regulate the exportation of natural resources. In recent weeks China has pushed Japan to the back seat and nestled them selves in as the world's second largest economy. After watching first hand the environmental exploitation of the African continent and particularly the coast line of Mozambique I have a new insight as to how this once developing nation is edging themselves, ever so quietly, into the next hegemony.

It will happen....eventually.

There is one thing you can almost always count on the East Asians for and that is speed, efficiency is a gamble and free spirited good times were never in the cards. East Africans on the other hand know not of this “speed” you speak of, efficiency is rarer still, but when it comes to good times they may well have invented the concept. A dear friend once relayed the Swahili saying, "haraka haraka haina baraka" and it translates most closely to "Great haste makes great waste". Now what the African people are wasting I am not entirely sure, but I was always under the impression it was my time! Waiting two hours for a piece of fish to arrive at a restaurant, waiting in front of a computer screen for 45 minutes for an email page to load only to realize the internet connection is incapable of supporting any actual emails and waiting another 30 minutes while a vendor finds change on a mere 50 met note becomes common place.

Moving with speed is anything but a pervasive concept in Eastern Africa however there is one facet of life in which speed has crept in, transportation. But do not be deceived, speed does not translate into efficiency. While you may be barreling down a crater riddled road in a tin death trap at 110 kilometers per hour do not anticipate a timely arrival. You and about 25 of your now close and intimate friends, a few chickens and some squid thrown in for good measure will be screeching to a halt every two kilometers. At each near death experience, some may refer to as a bus stop, you to drop off 2 friends and pick up 5 new ones. When you finally do arrive at your destination your are so grateful to have actually made it you don't even care it took almost 13 hours to complete a 350 kilometer journey. Nonetheless I still found the average rate of 27 miles per hour mildly offensive.

After eight months here in Eastern Africa I have become an expert in waiting! I'd say its a skill I have refined, revisited, processed and polished. Armed with this refined sense of waiting I have come to re-evaluate my initial sentiments on the matter of haste. At the risk of sounding cliché I have been taught the virtue is in the journey not the destination. And the journey here in the dark continent has been made with very little haste. They are far from the most productive people on the planet but they're probably some of the happiest. In the face of adversity there is no Xanax or Valium, no Prozac nor Wellbutrin. With their simplicity comes serenity. So, for the time being I will let go of my one million and ones thing to do, my Asia induced mania and I will wait. I will wait for that piece of fish, I will wait for my gmail that never loads, I will wait for my change and I will wait at death's door for late arrivals. I wait knowing that East Africans, can not, will not and perhaps should not be rushed. I am now armed with their assurance that whatever it is, it will happen....eventually.

Now, Today and The Day After Never.

When standing in the South African bush or a white sand stretch of Mozambique be wary of relying on locals to tell you when transport is arriving. While the person you are speaking to may reply in perfect English, it is highly likely that what you understand of and will expect from "now" or "tomorrow" varies drastically from what will actually be the case.

My conception of what one means when they say tomorrow has been revisited, redefined and revolutionized since living in Mozambique. I used to assume tomorrow was referring to a time with in the following 24 hours. I now understand that for most mozambicans and even some Soth Africans tomorrow can reference anytime in the next 24 hours, 2 weeks or even never-ever.

I can thank Mozambique for expanding my horizons on the term tomorrow but it is the South Africans who deserve credit for revolutionizing "now". The utterance of "now" previously resonated a sense of urgency with in a person. Thanks to South Africans "now" falls into a far broader time frame. Depending on it's repetition and placement with word "just", "now" can loosely refer to anything from this instant to the day after never.

As with many concepts in the world time has now joined the ranks of heat, poverty and modesty in being extensively and ultimately relative.